


Lycia

by strikeyourcolors



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Amazons - Freeform, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Deep Platonic Friendships, Established Relationship, Feelings, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Original Characters - Freeform, Supernatural Elements, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeyourcolors/pseuds/strikeyourcolors
Summary: Jason is dead. Dick is only starting to believe it when there are mysterious happenings in a nearby park. When paired with camera footage, it seems entirely possible that Jason is back from the dead...again. But why is he avoiding being seen?
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 18
Kudos: 139
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	Lycia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwon/gifts).



> This was the fic that wouldn't end and I apologize in advance. I let the werewolves get away from me.
> 
> There was an initial error in posting this fic in which about 3000 words got cut off! It's been fixed. It starts at "He hears the sound of rustling papers." Thank you for your patience and troubleshooting.

Jason is gone in an instant. 

Dick is entirely mummified in whatever kind of metal hybrid the newest rogue on the Gotham scene has in his arsenal. The stuff shoots like silly string, adheres like it's magnetic, and his usual blade for getting out of these types of scrapes is entirely useless. He's left squirming on the bridge dividing the main island from a satellite, trying to find cover so maybe he can wrangle his miniature blowtorch out of his utility belt. 

The arrival of Jason, with backup, was certainly a welcome one if entirely unexpected. "Can't take you anywhere," Jason teased and Dick could imagine that smarmy grin even with the helmet in place.

Bound though Dick is, he's keeping an eye on the fight. On the Amazonian swinging around a sword and Bruce is going to be _pissed_ when he finds out that someone from Paradise Island is defeating villains in his territory. Nightwing chased him here from Bludhaven though so, really, isn't that like ownership? And he's _happy_ to let a redhead with thighs as thick as tree trunks take care of this problem. He's happy to watch, too. 

Jason has given up on pistols. He's circling wide, looking for his partner (and that's what the woman is, surely?) to give him an opening to leap in. Dick struggles harder. The flame in his hand starts to melt one tendril of the metal binding him. Good. He won't need a welder to get this off of him. 

He peels one strip off, then the next. "Nowhere for you to go," Red Hood calls out to the man that he and the Amazon have pinned between them on the bridge. "You've caused enough bullshit today. Let's just go down nice and easy-"

"Hood-" The Amazon says. She has the same angle Dick does. He sees the villain lift up a device. A _detonator_ and suddenly that heavy coat and those wires coming out of him make sense. Stupid, stupid, stupid that he hadn't seen it earlier. 

The bridge is clear of civilians. It's blocked off from more traffic and those who were driving on it when the fight broke out have abandoned their cars and made a run for it. Police haven't caught up. It's just them. 

Nightwing makes some kind of garbled, yelling warning as he leaps to his feet with metal still clinging to him like a snake shedding its skin. "Watch-!"

Instead of taking cover, Red Hood charges the man. He shoves him over the guardrail of the bridge, onto the pedestrian path, and then swings him over the second railing. They fall. There's a sickening splat as something hits the water with an extreme amount of force, and the river bubbles up with the force of the explosion. 

"He wasn't on him when they hit the water," The Amazon, whose name Dick remembers suddenly is Artemis, says. She's already running, already jumping off the bridge. Dick makes it to the edge in time to see her dive neatly into a filthy river. 

He rips the metal from his legs so he can move them freely, already shooting a line down. He doesn't want to stun himself taking the full dive into the water. He'll swing down. He'll cover nearby. He hears the rumble of the Batplane and remembers that Batman was en route. "Hood's in the river," is all he can think to say. 

"Don't jump in after him," Batman advises and starts to lay out a strategic searching pattern with a grid system. 

Dick jumps in after him. 

The water is cold and dark. The current isn't particularly strong, but it's hard to see. Hard to wade through what's trash or marine life and what might be a person. Sometimes he can see Artemis, other times it's like he's the only explorer on an alien planet. 

He starts to rationalize. Jason can swim. Jason never surfaces. A human can hold his breath for a full three minutes without damage. Those minutes tick away. Jason can hold his breath for longer. Jason's smarter. Jason's stronger. 

They search until morning. All hands on deck. Even the cops are willing to drag the river. 

They find a body, and half of one. Neither belongs to Jason. The half belongs to the suicide bomber. The other is a woman. Unfortunate timing. 

As dawn creeps up the skyline and Dick sits shivering on the rocky-trash covered riverbank, it becomes apparent and panic-inducing. 

Jason was only out of his sight for an instant. He's still gone. 

\-----

The memorial service is small and simple. Close friends and family only. Wayne Manor. There's no body to bury. No location for a headstone to scope out this time. Tim makes a joke in bad taste about recycling graves, but Dick lets out an almost delirious giggle anyway. 

It feels ghoulish and wrong. Bruce seems to agree, even if it was his idea. Something to commemorate Jason's life because, after three months of silence, it seems likely that his life had ended. 

Bruce says a few words. Clark Kent says a few words, and he does a good job for someone who was never close to Jason Todd. The words are comforting, and they are definitely more to reassure the living than mourn the dead. 

Alfred's set out a little buffet for their twenty-something odd party. No one stopped him after the initial refusal to have it catered. He wants to do it. It gives him something to focus on. Dick hates to think of how many times this has happened that the man has to know what's appropriate for a funeral luncheon. 

Artemis of Bana-Mighdall is there. It's the first time he's seen her since she dove into the river after Jason. She's still an imposing figure in her black dress. Her hair reaches nearly down to her knees and it is left loose. She's taller than Clark in her heels. 

She finds Dick picking raisins out of a cookie, trying to balance out the ratio of fruit to dessert. "I am sorry for your loss," she says stiffly, but seemingly genuinely. "I know you were very close." 

"You were on his team," Dick replies. "I'm sure you saw a lot more of him than I did recently. Thanks, by the way. You didn't have to jump in -" He pauses. Cringes. He hadn't thought of his use of the word. "You didn't have to get involved in the fight on the bridge," he finishes, like a lame horse limping to the finish line. 

There's something unsettling in Artemis's face as she stares at him. Dick can't pinpoint it. The woman is undeniably gorgeous. She looks like she could snap him over her knee like a twig. She has full lips and high cheekbones and a strong jaw. There's just something there. Something that feels wild. Something that makes the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end to signal danger.

"An Amazon never flees from battle," Artemis announces. "I would have brought shame to my sisters if I had done so. Bad enough, they say, that I work with a man."

Dick waits for her to correct herself. Worked. She worked with a man. She doesn't. He doesn't want to be snapped like a twig, so he says nothing. 

"I know you were...fond...of Jason Todd," she continues, carefully enunciating her words. She looks like it's painful to speak. She has a glass of blackberry lemonade in her hand, but doesn't take a sip. "I know you knew him well." 

"Yeah, that kinda happens when you know someone for most of their life," Dick comments dryly. He wishes he had a signal here, like he does at the worse parties. An emergency signal where someone might take pity on him and rescue him. He doesn't want to talk about this. 

Artemis cocks her head and he gets that impression again, that something is off about her. Amazons are strange, he reassures himself, and Diana is more poised and less menacing than most. "I meant that you knew him in the Biblical sense. Or is it that he knew you?"

Dick chokes on his spit, throwing himself into a violent coughing fit. Artemis pounds him on the back hard enough he thinks his eyeballs might fly out of their sockets. Jason told her?!? It's only been three (almost four) times together. Stretched through years. They've never spoken of it after. Nothing has ever really changed and Dick's decided it's one of those tension releases and he's not going to do a walk of shame about it but he's not going to advertise that he's a booty call either. 

Was. He was a booty call. 

"I thought you two were...I thought he was knowing you," Dick says when he can finally breathe. 

The woman's grin seems out of place on this somber occasion. "No," she says simply. "He is only a partner and a capable warrior to fight with." 

"Was," he finally snaps. "He was a very capable warrior." 

Atemis purses her lips and makes a little "hmm" sound as she walks away from him. He thinks about tackling her, or throwing a centerpiece at her head. He decides to break into Bruce's liquor cabinet instead. 

\-----

Grief is a tangible thing. It gnaws a hole in his heart. It tears at his spirit. That something was there and is now gone is a struggle for any human mind to understand. You don't know where it went. It can't be returned to you. There simply existed a life, a person, and that person no longer is present. 

The lack of a body has been a curse as the months stretched on. At first, Dick had thought it was some elaborate scheme to fake his death. He'd accused Bruce of being in on it, but the grief on the man's face let him know that wasn't the case. 

He leaves notes and requests in all the secret places he and Jason had. In every safehouse he knows about. Begs for contact. Asks if he's alright. The notes become an outlet, become a kind of therapy. He tells Jason all the things he loved about him. He writes all the things that annoyed the shit out of him. He writes about how he wishes things were, and he apologizes over and over for failing to save him again. 

The first week had been numbness. The second had been frantic, baited hope. The third, and probably many weeks after, had been panic. Had been the feeling of never getting a full breath. Of a lump in his throat, of something sitting sad and heavy in his chest. 

He avoids the Manor. Avoids most of his family and friends. He runs patrols. He does his job. And he grieves. Those in his day job know he lost someone. He's moonlighting (or is it daylighting?) as a private investigator. Cheating spouses and embezzlement are about all he can do. Light things. They keep his mind busy, because he doesn't want to think about Jason. 

It's after the memorial service that he feels like his connection to the man grows. He's supposed to have closure now. He's supposed to start to heal. Instead he feels like Jason might be lurking around every corner. Like one night the Red Hood will start a game of rooftop tag with him. 

Sometimes his mind tricks him into believing that Jason is just away. Off on his own adventures with the Amazonian Redhead and the Superman Reject. It's not as though he was ever joined at the hip with Jason, and they've fistfought more than they've fucked, and they've fucked probably more than they've kissed. But every time he remembers that the man is absent from the world, there's a crushing sense of wrongness. 

It's Barbara Gordon he speaks to about it finally, six months in, because it always is. Since they were teenagers it's her he runs to for his problems, for some no-nonsense advice and sometimes a smack upside the head. It's her he sleeps beside when the world gets too terrible. 

He crashes at her place, commuting to Bludhaven, for a solid two weeks before she finally cooks breakfast for him and he knows she's about to throw him out. Her kiss of death is always syrup coated and delicious. 

The waffles have blueberries in them, and she draws a smiley face with bacon and whipped cream, so he knows that whatever truth she's about to lay on him is really bad. 

"You have to keep going," she tells him. "You have to go back to your life. To your job. To your apartment." 

"Tired of living with me? Do I stink?" Dick asks, desperately deflecting because then maybe she'll forget to evict him. 

She sighs and pours herself another cup of coffee. "The opposite. You used enough of my expensive bodywash that I wondered if you were eating it." 

"I don't think anyone keeps edible guavas in their shower," Dick counters. He spears a piece of waffle, crams it into his mouth, and chews. "I'll buy bodywash. I'll even throw in for shampoo. No parabens, no sulfates, no-"

"No," Barbara cuts him off. "This isn't healthy. When you lose someone-" 

Dick's eyes narrow. He's tamed his temper pretty well as he's grown older but something about the original Batgirl just brings it out in him again. Maybe because he knows she can take him being a petulant child. "More people have died on me than ever died on you, Babs."

"It's not a contest to see who has had more crap happen to them and if it was, okay, you win," she says. She's lost her emotional therapist hat and put on that practical friend hat. He's glad. 

"I know about loss." 

"You used to know about hope, too," Barbara replies mildly. "If you're going to stay here though, you might as well make yourself useful. I have some feed for you to review."

\-----

He knows better than to backtalk Babs. He sits and eats snacks and watches the feeds. They are entirely boring. People walking. She has cameras all over the city. She has access to police feeds. It's impossible to really watch them and observe crime as it happens. They exist for after a crime happens. They exist to use when you're looking for something in particular. 

She hasn't told him what he's looking for. That probably means she wants to see if he notices whatever it is she's seen, but it makes for very paranoid, boring viewing time. Eventually, he gets to know some of the people who pass by the feeds. There's a woman who wears ridiculously high heels but totally knows how to walk in them. There's a man who walks a little girl to her preschool and then home again. 

Then, there it is. A shadow in the bushes. He's watching the feed of a path through the park and he'd been watching the path, not the area around it. He only sees it on the night feeds. It always avoids the full view of the cameras, but he can see a dark patch (fur?) and the plants move as whatever it is moves through them. 

It makes loops. It varies in its patterns but clearly it has a set path it likes to travel. Over and over through the night. 

He's looking for evidence of it in the daylight. Enough that he nearly misses it. Nearly misses the figure jogging through the park in daylight. He's wearing sweats. He's new, based on the footage of the last day or so. He's wearing sunglasses and has earbuds in and Dick isn't sure what draws him to notice the figure at first. 

Then he sees it. The man (though Dick supposes it could be a larger woman) pauses, seemingly to stretch. He scoots to the side of the path and bends to stretch a hamstring. 

And he looks into the bushes. Looks for something. His head moves like he's scanning for something. Also not suspicious. Maybe something caught his interest. 

He does it again a few paces down. Surely no one needs to stretch that much. Then again, maybe it's simply a lazy jogger who has bitten off more than he can chew and he doesn't want to collapse on a bench and call it a day. The guy doesn't look like a jogger. He has too much muscle on him. 

It takes the better part of the day for Dick to go through the footage, and it skips around in time a lot. It becomes clear that Barbara has edited for the 'best of', so to speak. At first he thought it was some lesson she was teaching him on how these people went about their days for so long. Now he's intrigued. 

It's evening and he's checking the police feeds to be sure he doesn't need to go rushing back to Bludhaven for anything. He's answered Barbara's question as to what he wants for dinner but he can't remember what he said. He has his head half turned when the jogger pauses, and looks up at the camera. His face is in view for the first time.

Dick's mouth falls open. He freezes in place and his heart gives a desperate, frantic flutter. 

"What is it?" Barbara asks, smirking at him, one brow lifted. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

\-----

They eat Chinese takeout and discuss why someone who looks amazingly like Jason Todd is jogging around a Gotham Park and looking in the bushes, where something roams at night. 

"Only some nights," Barbara tells him. She knows more than she's letting on and it is intensely frustrating to Dick that she won't just lay all her cards on the table. This is important and he doesn't want to play stupid mind games. "Dick...it might not be him. Everyone's got a twin somewhere, you know?"

"It might be," Dick answers. "Have you checked it out further? Why haven't you-"

"I just saw his face this month," Barbara replies. "That's when I went back and started looking. The park's been on my radar for a while. Lots of reports of wild animals being spotted. Possibly connected to the overgrowth of plant life. The City hasn't done a lot of maintenance there. The arborist they hired is oddly unavailable. Lots of attempted crimes have been reported too...but always prevented. I started following it after a convicted rapist swore that his next victim's dog chewed his leg completely off, along with some more sensitive bits. The woman didn't have a dog. She didn't remember a thing." 

Dick absorbs this information with a shudder, but it doesn't stop him from taking some of the beef and broccoli from the container and flipping it onto his plate. They have strong stomachs in this line of work. "You think Jay faked his death?" It's been weighing on him for some time. 

"You're the expert," The redhead answers then sighs. "Sorry, that's mean. If he did, it wasn't our family who was involved. I've already quizzed them." 

Our family, she says like it's the mob, but he knows what she means. Not a Bat. "There's still stuff you're not telling me." 

She doesn't deny it, holding a crab rangoon between her chopsticks and examining it. "I can't hand you all the answers, Boy Wonder. And I don't want to venture any theories on you and have you be influenced. People coming back from the dead is tricky business. Don't want anyone to think you're crazy." 

Dick winces because, yeah, he's thought people were crazy a few times for insisting someone was alive. It's so hard for death to be permanent in their line of business. "So what am I supposed to do about it?"

She shrugs. Makeupless, exhausted, Dick is still struck by how pretty Barbara Gordon is. She doesn't have the Amazonian goddess look of Artemis, or the other-worldly, feline beauty of Starfire, but there's something approachable about her. Something he's always been drawn to, and her gaze is softer. She doesn't look wild, doesn't look like she wants to chew him up and spit him out. "I'm leaving that up to you but the last vicious dog sighting was almost a month ago so I think you have a good chance of finding the dog...or the jogger."

\-----

She sends him off with a can of pepper spray that would take down a bear and probably a rabid dog. It's in a small, bright yellow, glittery case and the lid has a cupcake imprinted on it. Dick knows she's purposefully given him this one, because they both have way more serious weaponry, but that's okay. She's trying to lighten his spirits and, secretly, he likes the pretty pepper spray. The color makes it easy to find and he feels warm and reassured in a way; someone loves him enough to gift him with this women's self-defense spray. Of course she's also sending him to find a dog that chewed a man's penis off, but he'll accept the love.

That night he focuses on the park. It's an oddly peaceful kind of patrol. He encounters not a lot of action or people at all. A man walking a screaming infant through the park in the wee hours so his wife (and apartment building in general) can get some sleep. More than a few sets of couples looking for somewhere private to make out. Third Shift workers on their meal breaks. 

He works out a theory that the overgrowth and missing arborist are the work of Poison Ivy, but vicious animals aren't really her style. And Jason - if this is Jason- doesn't seem like he has any information either if he's investigating this case. He'd be able to sniff Ivy out. He has some weird homing beacon for their female rogues. 

There's nothing the first night. The next day he has to head to Bludhaven and he's kept there well into the night, getting things back under control. He's letting Tim and his Titans stretch their wings and babysit Bludhaven, but some things still need his support. 

He makes it back to the park mid-afternoon and fully intends to do a quick walk-through, grab a hot dog, and come back when the sun has set. He's lost in his own little world, pausing here and there to look at the canines being walked. None seem particularly vicious, and no hulking beast leaps out to eat any of them. 

He looks up and sees the jogger. Same sweats as on the video. Same oversized sunglasses. The man's head lifts in his direction. Dick swears he feels the spark of recognition. 

Then the man turns and sprints away. Dick has half a hot dog in his mouth. He throws the rest of it as he starts to sprint, focusing on chewing, swallowing, and not choking to death. It's easier for the jogger to clear a path through people because they are used to men jogging. They are not used to other men who are not in exercise clothes scrambling, running, and yelling with their mouths full of lunch. 

Jason's always been fast for his size but this guy, this doppelganger, is incredibly fast. He's nimble too, dodging this baby stroller and that tiny dog nipping at his heels. Dick is running full tilt, desperately sucking air in through his nose, and he's still losing him. It's pure serendipity (for him, anyway) that the runner turns to look at him, to see if he's still on his tail, and thus misses the golf cart and wagon that have pulled into his way. 

It's a ground maintenance crew vehicle and the teenager inside it looks horrified. It's like it all happens in slow motion for Dick. The man he's chasing turns at the last second and tries to jump. His foot catches the edge of the wagon. Rakes, shovels, and hedge trimmers fly in the air along with the human body, which goes somersaulting into a tree. The fall is broken by his face and an arc of crimson blood goes flying that even Dick can see from how far away he is. 

His lungs are burning by the time he reaches the scene. The teenager looks frantic; she's already crying. "Get help," Dick pants out, and has to repeat himself so she'll hear him. "Go on. I'll...take...care of things...here." 

No one else is around. He waits until the girl is running off to find help to plant his foot in the back of the man. The figure beneath his sneaker groans and Dick feels maybe a little bad. "You okay?"

He turns him over. The sunglasses have shattered. His nose is a bloody mess. But he knows what Jason looks like bloodstained and incredibly pissed off and this is definitely Jason.

His breath freezes in his lungs. It's like all the air had been stolen from around him. His brain feels like it is in free fall. Since he viewed the video footage he's considered this. Thought of this. But having it confirmed is something else. It's something real and tangible and _painful_ in a way he didn't expect. 

He doesn't expect the punch either. It's sloppy, as far as vigilante strikes go, but it's powerful. Jason clocks him over the side of the head with a closed fist and the ringing in his ears isn't just from shock anymore. He hadn't even seen Jason move, let alone get high enough to hit him. But Dick has a kind of dogged, frustrating determination. His fingers dig into the meat of the man's shoulder and he tries to push him back down at the same time the heel of his foot slams into his knee. Jason tries to compensate but it's too late, he's back on his knees. 

“You _bastard_ ,” Dick hisses. Rage is overcoming shock. Jason dies, comes back, pretends to still be dead, makes him chase him down through a crowded park, after hiding from him and now he's going to punch him? “You fucking _bastard_. Do you know how terrible this has been? Do you know how-”

He's cut off by another punch, this one to the hollow beside his hipbone where he's pretty sure a kidney lives. Used to live, because it feels like Jason might've killed it. “Like you did?” Jason snarls back, teeth bared like an animal. 

There's not a good response to that and that's fair, since Dick is too busy trying not to vomit or double over that he has no witty retort ready. He's taken worse hits, many worse hits, but something about this encounter tears him to the core. 

“Stay away from me. I don't want anything to do with you.” The words, too, are worse than any blow. Jason's fingers dab at the blood on his face, pick a shard of sunglass lens out of the flesh of his cheek. “Forget you saw me. Forget I was here. And if you know what's good for you, you'll keep it to yourself.” 

He's sure Barbara, at least, has watched most of the encounter play out. The phrase seems like he's trapped in a mobster movie, but it's still intimidating. Jason is intimidating. Never the less, Dick grips him. Not by the throat. That's too threatening. He takes a fistful of his sweatshirt and the necklace that has worked its way free of the neckline. He's not letting go. He'll call for help. Drag Jason back. Make him see-

Before he can argue his point, Jason takes off. Not away from him, or dodging around him like any sane person, but _through_ him. He barrels into Dick like a linebacker, sending him flying through the air and landing a good ten feet away, feeling like his ribs are crushed. He sees stars, and when his vision clears, Jason is gone. 

“Mister?” The park attendant is back. “I couldn't find a medic but this woman says she's an EMT and-hey, you're not the guy who ran into the tree.” 

_No shit,_ Dick wants to reply, but still isn't breathing easily enough for a quip. 

\-----

The symbol that is on the necklace he stole from Jason isn't one he recognizes right away. He uses the database to search through symbols of known cults, especially those having to do with resurrection, and comes up empty. Likewise, he searches through the main database of symbols just in case it's one in common use that he doesn't know, and there are no matches. For the hell of it he starts comparing it to various brand names and fashion houses. Nothing. Not that he'd expected much from the last search.

Bruce has been hovering now and again, not because he thinks Dick is incapable but because he's nosy as fuck and unwilling to admit it. Dick had only mentioned it was for a case, but not which one in particular, and he knows that Bruce is itching to solve the mystery. Lately Batman has been mostly involved in roughing up the bad guys and bringing justice to the attacked instead of solving mysteries and he is one of the world's greatest detectives. 

"I give up," Dick announces at last. "Does the symbol look familiar to you?"

Bruce leaps on the question. "Not right off. But it looks ancient. Like-" He punches in a few keys and, once again, there's nothing. He frowns. "It's not a symbol from any ancient language." 

The necklace itself is still in a plastic bag where Dick had deposited it after he'd scanned images of it and a rendering into the computer system. Bruce lifts it up by the corner, staring at it like he's daring it not to unload its mysteries upon him. "Did you run an analysis of the materials?"

"The thong is leather," Dick replies. "I think the charm is silver? Maybe pewter. It's tarnished but-"

Bruce hands him the bag, though he looks like he desperately wants to abscond with it to run testing. "Get an idea of what it's made of. Then you can start looking at jewelers to see if they sold anything similar." 

It's a good idea. Dick would have thought of it eventually but he'd been fixated first on the meaning of the charm attached rather than anything it was made of. He restrains the urge to sigh, but maybe annoyed petulance toward Bruce is better. Then he'll feel less guilty about what he's hiding. That he's telling him it's for a case. He's not lying to Bruce; he hasn't explicitly said it's for a case that doesn't involve one of his children rising from the dead again.

The machine takes half an hour to run a full cycle of analyzing what material you put into it. For more complex materials it can take several hours to fully deconstruct them. A half hour is still too long to pace, and Bruce offers only a grunt when he tries to converse about anything but the case, so Dick runs through his aerial obstacle course that remains so little used, but present, in the Bat Cave. 

He tries not to think of Jason's bloody face. Tries not to think of the heat of his body where Dick held him down. The way it rolled beneath him. The way muscles bunched and strained. 

He doesn't think of Jason's too-plush lips. Of that odd, wild glint in his eyes. People have accused him of being uncivilized before but that expression. Not just like he could kill Dick, or like he could fuck him, but like he could eat him up bit by bit and they'd both enjoy every moment. 

Dick nearly misses the last bar he's supposed to swing to. His fingers slip, but he catches a hold with his toes and flips himself over gracefully. He doesn't even have to think to do it. It's automatic. An instinct. The same instinct that is telling him that the last thing Jason Todd needs is to be left alone. 

Bruce has some murder scene photos up on the computer when Dick walks by to retrieve his readings, so it seems he's moved on. He's happy to take the necklace, the print out, and leave...except Bruce has digitized it. He has to pick up a tablet to read the results. 

He stares a moment. "I don't understand this. I think we've got a malfunction." 

Bruce rises to his feet; he's getting slower. Stiffer. Dick pretends he doesn't see, because he doesn't want to think about the implications of what that means. He looks at the screen over his shoulder. "It says it's leather, made in the last twenty years, mix of cow and goat."

Dick rolls his eyes. "The metal, genius." Part of his inner rebellious teenager flutters in joy, because there were plenty of times he'd wanted to say that to Batman and had been too utterly terrified to do so. "It just gave me a weird number." 

"It's only set for more common elements. If it ran a conclusive read out for every substance known to man then results could take weeks..." He continues muttering, tapping a few buttons on the screen. 

Then Bruce looks puzzled. That's not good. Dick looks at the screen too, but there are no discernible words on the screen. "It says it's Amazonium," his father announces. 

"Is that something beyond the obvious?" Dick asks. "With a name like Amazonium I'm going to assume that it doesn't have to do with the rain forest." 

"You would be correct," Bruce said grimly. "It isn't very common. "Especially in the world of man." 

The information is both puzzling and relating to Dick. It's a rare metal. That should narrow theoptions a lot. However, it's completely baffling that has charm around a man's neck would be made of Amazonium. Especially a man who, as far as he knew, had no connection with Paradise Island.

Except for Artemis. Except for his long-standing who had come to his funeral. Who had taunted Dick.

Dick sighs. He knows when to ask for help. Age and experience have taught him that it isn't the end of the world to go to Bruce. And this is for Jason. This is for his own sanity if he's completely honest. He has to know. "I don't suppose you have any experts on Amazonium on call?" he tries to make it sound like a joke. Like his normal cheerful self. Like his very being isn't hinging on the answer to this case. 

"Not one, unless you want to ask Diana," Bruce admits. "Which I can. But you would have to be more specific about the circumstances regarding this case for me to know to ask the right questions." He pauses a moment a frown creasing his features, making the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes all the more visible. "She's on Assignment right now. It might take a few days to reach her. Can you wait that long?" There is an appraising look on Bruce's face now. He looks Dick over like that might clue him in to what's going on in his oldest son's head. There's genuine worry and his expression. It always made Jason bristle. Hhe hadn't felt loved or fussed over. He had felt judged.

Dick wonders what other resources there are two plunder. If Bruce doesn't know an expert on Amazonium, what? He could ask Barbara again. He would also have to show her the necklace. He would have to ask her about the symbol. It feels so private suddenly, this thing with Jason. It feels like a secret. His secret is when he started sleeping with Jason. That's when he started loving him. He's not sure he can share this. At first he thought it was to protect the others. But in case he was wrong, no one else needed to be disappointed. Now he knows better. This is for him. This for Jason. This is for the two of them together. Everyone else can wait. Everyone else has to wait.

He thinks about calling his contact from the local Museum. Would someone from the Museum of Natural History be able to help him? But that draws him to another thought. His contact, a woman named Sarah, has a daughter. Dick keeps getting invited to the little girl's birthday party and it has been cute. She was utterly besotted with him. She has been a charming, lively thing, with sparkling brown eyes and bright red hair. He told her about his penchant for redheads and she had promised to marry him. He told the story to Jason, the tackled wildly, and asked if he should be jealous. When Dick had questioned if he should, with a raise and wiggle of his eyebrows, he thought Jason was going to make a run for it. 

The birthday party had been not at the Museum of Natural History, as Sarah wanted, but in a different museum. A Wonder Woman Museum. It was far more elaborate than Dick had thought it would be. Of course, he’d been to the Flash Museum. He had been to the Batman Museum. Why would Wonder Woman's be any less impressive? She didn't have much of a fan base in Gotham, not with all the bats running around. Even so, the owner of the museum had made it a nice, well-curated place. Dick learned some things about Diana that he had no idea of, though he had known her most of his adult life. 

He remembered in particular the exhibits about the Amazons themselves. About Themyscyra. "I have an idea," he told Bruce. "Let me know what Diana says but I might have a lead. Can I borrow a car?" 

Bruce looks a little surprised at that, nods his head in the affirmative. "Take whichever one you want." It sounds like a generous offer and for most people it would be. For a man with cars he never drives, it's really a practicality. 

Dick doesn't take the flashiest sports car. It's still a rather nice one, an expensive model, because he is going to this Museum as Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson who might be interested in making a donation for the right amount of information.

The museum is in a two-story building that used to be a house. The interior has been redone with rich wood tones and stone paneling. He knows that Diana has been here, only By Word of Mouth from, and the many photographs lining the walls of her visits. She hadn't shut it down so it must be somewhat authentic. On the drive over, Dick tries to think of the name of the museum operator. It was a rather small operation wasn't it? The person he'd seen most was the party planner but they'd had someone on staff to authenticate artifacts and to talk about the Amazons. 

The answer, surprisingly, greets him at the door. There's a name there in fresh vinyl decals. Lucien Samuels, Ph.D. For some reason, he had not been expecting a man to own the place. 

It turned out too, but Lucien was gorgeous. He had a wild main of pale almost white blond hair. His eyes were piercing blue. Dick's name had not garnered much recognition, but when he was presented with the charm, Lucien welcomed him into his back office. "This is a very rare find! Where did you say you got it?" 

"I won it in a silent auction. For charity." That's not unheard of - people clean out attics and garages and donate the strangest things. 

"And you're sure it's Amazonium?" Lucien prompts. He slides the necklace out of the bag and onto a tray. A bright light is shone on it and Lucien drags over amagnifying glass. "Oh no, it definitely is. What a lovely piece." 

"What can you tell me about it?" Dick asks, wanting to sound like he's really interested in the history."What symbol is it? Does it mean anything? Where is it from?" 

Lucien lets out a chuckle. "So many questions! You're in luck - I recently reviewed a primary source dealing with exactly this. The symbol is that of the Goddess Leto. I'm told not many of her worshippers remain on the Island." 

Dick struggles to remember his Greek mythology. "Leto. She was the mother of Artemis and Apollo right?" He asks, feeling a little bit proud of himself. "Why are her worshipers not on the island anymore? I thought they were big on goddesses." 

"Leto was a wanderer," Lucien replies. "She was driven from her home and roamed the wilds, even after she gave birth. Those who followed Leto did similar. An initiation of sorts, originally, before it became their way of life." Lucien frowns, considering. "Of course, the worship of Leto was strongly discouraged even if it wasn't banned." 

Dick doesn't know a good deal about Amazonian politics, or religion, or government. He should probably change that. "Why not?" 

"It doesn't make for a very stable society," Lucien replies. "It was at its height in this world centuries or so ago before the followers began to die out. Their beliefs were more extreme. Leto was a wolf goddess and the Amazons who followed her began taking it to heart. Parties under the full moon. Wearing wolf pelts and running wild." 

That sounds pretty tame and par the course for what Dick does know of Amazons. "And?" He prompts. They train women to kill men with their thighs. A little party seems like nothing. 

Lucien leaves the necklace on the table and moves to his vast bookshelf, thumbing through bindings as he looks for what he was referencing. “Their beliefs didn't mesh well with those of changing society. Even the early Victorians weren't fond of the gatherings, though those had become increasingly more tame.”

“Then there's no one who is still...what are they called? Followers of Leto?” Dick asks.

“Just that,” Lucien replies. “I'm certain there are some around but not very active. You'd probably have to go to Themyscyra itself to find anyone who knows the practice without the bastardization humans put on it.” 

It makes Dick wonder if Amazons aren't technically human, but that's a question for another man and another day. “This is a little off-beat,” he admits. “But would you like to go to dinner? I'm going to pick your brain apart and I'd at least like to feed you.”

There are lots of reasons for Lucien to accept. The money, the name, the fact Dick is an attractive man. He still hesitates a moment. “You want to talk about Amazons?”

Dick nods enthusiastically. “And followers of Leto.” 

Lucien pauses in selecting a book. “Let me just lock up.” 

\------  
Lucien, it turns out, isn't interested in his money or his name. His pretty, pale eyes do widen slightly when he sees the blue sports car that Dick is driving, but he doesn't say anything about it. Lucien is more interested in having someone to talk to about a subject he is passionate about. A lot of the words and stories and references go over Dick's head, but he's happy to listen. 

Also maybe if he's nice enough, Lucien might let him borrow one of those books he keeps talking about. He doesn't like thinking he's bribing someone for a favor with food, but he's not going to put pressure on him and Dick can't count the number of times he's been swayed into helping someone move or taking someone to their cousin's wedding because they invited him for a meal first. 

Dick picks a little Italian place where they won't really be noticed or overheard. Lucien tells him how he got his degree in ancient cultures and wasn't sure what he was going to do with his life before being put in a hostage situation. He'd been saved by Wonder Woman and then suddenly the solution had seemed obvious. A Wonder Woman museum, with a particular focus on the Amazons. Not a lot of research had been done on them. Despite going back thousands of years they'd only been 'rediscovered' with Diana. 

If this was a date, it wouldn't be half bad. Dick doesn't feel like it's a date. Lucien is attractive, the conversation is interesting, but he's learned a lot from his more desperate bachelor days. He imagines part of this situation with Jason is because they never progressed beyond casual fucking with unspoken feelings attached. 

Eventually, Lucien gets back to what Dick is really interested in. He's been biding his time through his plate of spaghetti, reminding himself that context is important. "The followers of Leto had this thing called a Lupa, right? It's an odd mesh of cultures since Lupa is Roman. The she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus." 

Dick nods, like he knows this. Like he isn't a little off put by the use of the word 'suckled'.

The man is animated. He keeps moving his fingers from his knife and fork to make elaborate gestures. There's something charming and genuine in his eccentricity. "They meet every twenty-nine days, give or take. Originally, this was a party. It was described rather favorably by the male historians of the time but of course it would be. Groups of available women, intoxicated and in scant forms of dress. The sources get more blurred them. Rumors of men disappearing and never returning. The followers of Leto got a reputation as being man-eaters and became more secretive." 

That didn't sound good. Dick takes the moment the waiter comes over to ask about dessert to gather his thought. "I'd like to see these texts," he tells him after they've both politely turned down a dessert. Lucien has to get back to the museum. Dick feels like he might not want tiramisu sitting in his stomach the more he learns about this. 

"I'll see if I can copy the relevant pages to you," Lucien agrees. "But as you can imagine, information gets a little scarce and less reliable once accusations of cannibalism are out there." 

It's true even now, Dick wants to say, but he doesn't want to explain how he knows that. He hasn't quite played the dumb son of a billionaire but certainly he doesn't want to throw anything out there about being Nightwing. It's not hard to figure out he's a private investigator if you really look. 

"One of the last references to this group changes the narrative slightly. They aren't eaters of man, but takers of man. Still women, but instead of wearing wolf skins the translation is different. They 'put on' their wolf skins." Lucien finishes off his glass of iced tea- it's dinner so it's appropriate to drink but he hadn't bothered to even glance at the wine list when it was offered. Dick decides this puts things more firmly in the realm of a business dinner. "Supposedly it's in Lycia - wolf country. It's an actual place but it seems like too much happens there. It might be a metaphor." 

_For what_? Dick wants to demand, but Lucien has already been more than helpful. Dick insists on picking up the check. Lucien offers to show him around the museum and tells him he absolutely must come back when there's a new exhibit - and the Lupa and followers of Leto would make an excellent new exhibit. 

“You know who might be useful?” Lucien asks, staring at some point behind Dick, though not at anything in particular. “Mary Emms. Most of what I know about the topic is from her, one way or another. She's written a lot of scholarly articles on Leto, though she hasn't gone as far down the Amazonian rabbit hole as I have.” He grins. “You want me to get in contact with her? See what she can tell you?”

“Sure,” he agrees. “I'd hate to resell that necklace when it belongs in a museum or something and the topic is surprisingly interesting.” 

The look that Lucien gives him makes it clear he doesn't believe him. But that's okay- a man who owns a museum dedicated to a superheroine no doubt knows what it is to be judged. 

It's well past dusk when they reach the street where Dick parked. He'd parked under a street light out of convenience and an available space rather than out of safety, but it seems like the effort would be for naught even if he had parked there so no one would scratch his car. 

The car isn't just scratched. There are deep gouges in it, the metal rent and split like it was nothing but paper. The structure of the car itself, and the mechanical parts of it, are fine as far as Dick can see. It's still entirely drivable but it looks...

It looks like a giant cat toy, clawed to pieces. 

"Wow," Lucien says, staring at it. "What do you think happened here?"

"Must be an ex," Dick says. It's the first thing he can think of and at least his nervous laughter makes sense. "Pissed one off recently so I should've expected my car to get keyed." 

"Is your ex a fucking werewolf?" Lucien asks, fingering one of the gashes. "Holy shit." 

_Maybe_ , Dick thinks. He swears he feels someone watching him from nearby, but when he turns to look, there's no one. 

\------

He's pretty good at ignoring the looks his car gets. He drops Lucien off at the museum. "I'd invite you in to take a look," the man says. "But I'm afraid you might get a car bomb next. I'll forward those reference materials tonight, okay?"

Dick can't blame him for wanting to cut all ties and run away. If Lucien believed the crazy ex story, he probably feared for his life. 

Dick drives back to Wayne Manor, gives the bad news to Bruce, and insists that he has no idea what happened to the car. When he calls Babs to confirm that no one has any idea, she seems almost amused. "No evidence of it. That's not a street anyone monitors," she tells him. "But you can guess that our hooded jogger was in the area." 

Yeah, he knows. This has Jason written all over it. Wanton property destruction aside, he's a little bit impressed. He's not sure if Jason knows he's on the trail of something, or if Jason thought he was on a date. He's not sure if he should be flattered at Jason guarding his territory...or warned off being too clever. 

"It is an Amazon necklace," he informs Bruce. "The symbol of the goddess Leto." Let him figure out the rest of it. As secretive as Dick feels about this, he almost wants someone to confirm he's not losing his mind. 

He doesn't stay at the Manor, and he doesn't go back to Barbara's. He picks a safehouse as near the park as he can manage, sets up his laptop, and downloads the files that Lucien forwards him. The language is ancient and even the English translations are a bit difficult to parse. Some of them have multiple translations, too, and Dick nearly goes cross-eyed from trying to tell the difference. 

Women wearing wolfskins. Women in wolfskins. Wild parties around the full moon. People drinking and hallucinating. It sounds like a good time, if he's honest, and he would believe entirely that Amazons in general still do this. Lucien has helpfully highlighted parts he should focus on. About how, as Leto was forced to wander to give birth to her twins, the members of her group must wander alone. How members of the tibe (translated as pack, in another text) are bound together even without proximity, how celebrations are all the greater when your members are scattered. 

They've seen zombies and ghosts. There are beings from other planets and goo that has somehow gained sentience. Why should the idea of a werewolf be far-fetched? Why is the idea of wolf people somehow stranger than an island of women that hid themselves from the world for centuries?

Jason wasn't eaten. That's a good sign. But is he now one of them?

He takes a walk to clear his head. He doesn't don the Nightwing suit, just pulls on a pair of pants to be decent, puts on his shoes, and heads out. There are crickets in the distance; as rural as Gotham ever gets near the city. The air is less stifling. The night is what qualifies as quiet. 

There's something like an itch under his collar. It isn't physical but he reaches back anyway like he can scratch it away. His hand it caught by another, warm and large and calloused. A hand he'd know, a hand he reaches for in the dark even now. 

It would be romantic except he's suddenly put in a headlock and dragged backward, into the shelter of an overhang and a dumpster. The man is larger than he is and Dick leans against his broad chest. He can feel his ribs heaving as he breathes. "I don't have my wallet," he says, making his voice purposefully and over the top seductive. "What can I do instead?"

"You're gross," Jason rumbles behind him, but he sounds a little bit amused. He huffs out a little sigh, the one that Dick knows means he has something he wants, though quickly he stiffens again. "And you shouldn't be doing what you're doing." 

"What, walking? Existing? Looking for someone I think is dead? Nice trick, by the way. I've never had anyone fake their own death to get out of a date with me." 

"It wasn't like that," Jason says simply. "It wasn't about you-"

"And the trick with the car," Dick begins, because no one silences him when he's on a self-vindicating roll. "Jealousy isn't your best look." 

He can see Jason's mouth out of the corner of his eye. It smirks. Dick wants to kiss him, as much as he wants to punch him. "It was less about jealousy and more about warning you away from my business. I know you think you're the center of the universe but there are things at play you don't understand."

Dick can hear someone on the street, so he doesn't cry out in exasperation like he desperately wants to. "You know who you sound like right now?"

"Don't-" Jason starts, and his fingers tighten on Dick's bicep. 

"Starts with B, rhymes with-" Dick's taunt is cut off along with his air, by the man's forearm tightening across his throat. It should frighten him. This man, back from the dead, suffocating him to death in an alley. Instead it sends a kind of tingle up his spine and Dick tells himself that's from past experience with his assailant rather than being fucked up. He's not nearly in danger of passing out, but he taps his arm. Once. Twice. Tapping out. 

Jason loosens the hold; they were just playing then. Sometimes that line between Jason wanting to play rough and Jason wanting to murder was so blurry. The man presses his face against Dick's temple, inhales deeply. He just holds him for a moment too long. "You should forget you saw me. Tell Barb to forget - and also to stay away from any Amazons. They're eyeballing her to join their little club." 

That's news to him. "Like they did you?"

He feels the shake of his head. "My case is a little different. They're not bad people but this life..." He's quiet. Contemplative in a way Dick has rarely seen him before. 

Dick ducks under his arm, pushes him backward so he contacts the wall. He turns and it's like a dance. Leg extended so Jason can't rush away from him, not that the man tries. There's something eccentric in most of Dick's movements and Jason has always enjoyed watching him. He pins Jason to the wall with his full body. Jason doesn't struggle; that's good. It's far more pleasant just being with him. 

For a moment, he's at a loss. He's left soaking up the warmth, the sensation he's had dreams and nightmares both about. He curls his hand over Jason's heart and feels it beating through the hoodie. "This the uniform for your club?" He teases. "Hoodies and sweats all the time?"

"Easy to buy, easy to wear, easy to blend in," Jason replies. They are face to face, almost nose to nose. There's not a scratch on Jason, certainly not evidence of a broken nose. "At least until you came along." 

"You're in Gotham," Dick reminds him. "If you wanted to blend in and not be recognized couldn't you go like, literally, anywhere else?"

Jason's eyes never used to be this green, Dick swears. "Gotham's home," he replies, then elaborates. "Where I was born. I'm bound to where I was born for a while." 

That makes no sense. The words themselves do, but not the concept of it. "Why did you do it?" Dick asks at last, and feels lost and weak, though at least he's not crying. "Why did you let me think you were dead?"

Jason's fingers feel so gentle on his face as they trace his cheekbone. "It's easier on us both if I'm dead. In another six months I'll leave and you won't have to worry about running into me again."

That's not what he wants. Dick has a thousand questions running through his head, but they feel caught in his throat. He feels like his mouth is full of cotton. It's a frustrating sensation. As Nightwing he's never at a loss for words, never without a witty quip. But now? His mind is a swirling miasma and a total blank all at once. "I want to run into you," he says at last and the words feel hopelessly inadequate. "I want you to stay. With me." 

“That can't happen,” Jason says. It's a tone he's had since he was a gangly, awkward teenager. The one where he's trying to be tough, trying to bury emotion behind a wall of muscle. “It's dangerous for you for me to be anywhere close to you, Dick.” 

It strikes him how odd it is that it's rare for Jason to use his name. His actual name, not a mocking _Richard_ or a nickname. “You won't hurt me.” He says it with certainty. He's said it before. Staring down the muzzle of Jason's gun, asking Red Hood to let him drop five stories without trying to catch him. He's whispered it intimately with his fingers in Jason's too shaggy and in need of a cut hair. He believes it with the same certainty he believes the sun will rise each morning. 

And so it hurts him when Jason laughs. It's a mirthless chuckle, but it still stings. “I'm the least of your problems here, cupcake. You're snooping around where you shouldn't and someone is going to notice and want you to stop. We're supposed to cut ties. Living in the city of our birth is a test. To prove our loyalty has shifted.” 

“Shifted to what?” Dick demands, getting both angry and paranoid. He casts a quick look around but sees nothing. No one watching. Maybe Jason's making it up. Maybe - 

“You left the park after you first saw me and went to Barbara,” he says, speaking low. “You got an ice pack and some pain reliever there. You stopped at the bodega on Third and bought a candy bar. Then you drove to the Manor.” Jason's face is close to his throat. His breath makes the hairs all over his body stand on end, makes him shiver. “Didn't expect the Wonder Woman museum. That was particularly fucking clever. You find out anything good?”

Nothing _good_ , he wants to say. “What, you didn't follow me inside?”

“I didn't follow you. I followed the person following you to make sure you were safe. Not that you make it fucking easy, Goldie.” 

There's a lot of information to process in those statements. That someone else was following him unseen, that Jason had wanted to keep him safe. A hundred more questions were in his mind. 

They were wiped away when Jason kissed him. It was a hungry kiss. A needy kiss. The kind of kiss, definitely, that Dick would otherwise believe would head to the bedroom. Or at least to a good hard, quick fuck in a private little alley somewhere. The alley they are currently in is seeming pretty appealing, in fact. 

“I know I've never been one for following the rules,” Jason murmurs against his lips. “But right now the best way to keep you safe is to keep you away.”

“If you're in a cult we can do something. We can get you out of it and-” 

Jason's laughter this time sounds more like a bark. “I wish it was that simple. I really, really do.” 

“I know about Leto,” Dick blurts out, trying to keep his voice soft. 

Jason goes very still against him. “I wish you hadn't said that.”

Dick doesn't get to ask why. He's hit from the side. It's an odd angle; he's not expecting it all. Usually he has great peripheral vision. He's aware of when things are moving. He has senses honed from a lifetime of being a vigilante. 

Whatever it is, it's large and heavy and warm. It feels like a hairy punching bag has just been blasted out of a canon into his side. 

He goes flying into the air and only that same training that earlier betrayed him reminds him to curl into a ball, to find his center of gravity, and to land on his feet. He almost even succeeds, but as soon as the balls of his feet make contact with the ground he's hit again. There's no space to perform any acrobatics this time; he's lost all sense of space. He crashes against a brick wall and slides down it which has to look comical, like a cartoon character with a doorway removed. 

He hears the sounds of a fight when his ears stop ringing, and he swears there's a yelp. He wants to call out for Jason. He wants to protect him from whatever it was that just hit him. 

_Don't do it,_ , he swears he hears Jason and there's a note of pleading in his voice that is strange and disarming because Jason never begs. Jason tells. Then _It's not like that._ but he can't hear who it is talking to him. Maybe no one at all. 

He's still struggling to get his numb body upright when he passes out. 

\-----

It isn't an easy way to come awake. One moment he's unconscious, floating and beyond all trivial earthly matters. Unaware. The next he's jerking awake to the smell of garbage and blood and a pain that feels like his entire left side has been set on fire. 

“You with me, honey? The ambulance will be here real soon.” The voice is unfamiliar, but the speaker swims into blurry focus. It's a middle-aged woman with dark skin, her hair in neat braids, her brown eyes full of concern. “You got a name to go with your pretty face?”

He wants to grin at that. To say something flirty and maintain his image. It feels like it's hard to move his face and he's terrified for a brief moment that he's landed wrong and been paralyzed; it's one of his reoccuring nightmares. But his toes wiggle and his fingers move and he can even lift his arms. 

“Stay still,” the woman urges him. “I've got my son waiting to flag down the driver. It'll just be a couple of minutes.” And, true to her word, he hears the wail of approaching sirens. He has a brief moment of complete panic; getting loaded into an ambulance while injured is also a huge vigilante no-no. He remembers then that he's in civilian clothes. 

“What happened?” he asks, proud that his speech is only a little bit slurred. 

“Looks like you got jumped. My son found you when he was chasing our dog back here and it's a good thing that mutt pulled off his leash.” 

The woman doesn't notice Dick still has his wallet, which is good. He thanks her and is wondering how to escape when the reflection of ambulance lights starts to shadow on the walls. When he shifts to sit up, he realizes his side is coated in blood. That's the source of the pain. He starts to peel his shirt back and the woman's hands catch his. “It's bad,” she advises. “I wouldn't do that.” 

He doesn't see how bad until the paramedic is cutting his shirt apart to get a look. His flesh is carved, and it's rather deep. It's nothing for Nightwing but he has to admit it looks rather gruesome. He doesn't have to put on a show of being confused, or disturbed by it all. 

The paramedics assure him that he's not in any danger. There's a lot of blood but the wound is superficial other than in a few places. He texts Barbara in the ambulance, despite being advised otherwise. He isn't classed as critical, once the bleeding stops, and he's in for a long wait at the hospital. 

He examines his wound while he waits for the doctor to come in. The deeper points of it are still bleeding sluggishly but otherwise it's been cleaned up. It looks like someone took a knife to him and slashed at him. It takes him a laughably long time, which he'll blame on the pain medication, to realize that it's a symbol carved into him, curling from his ribs down to his hipbone. It's the symbol on the necklace. The mark of Leto. 

He's contemplating what it means in the five hours it takes them to bandage him up and release him from the hospital with antibiotics and pain killers. Barbara is there to collect him. He's left about twenty voicemails for Lucien Samuels questioning why anyone would slice that mark into his skin. A message? A warning? He asked the nurse to take a few photos of it before they covered his middle in gauze. 

“You gonna tell me I'm stupid?” he asks Babs after she's loaded him in the car. He's buckled in but he keeps scooting toward her, trying to rest his head on her shoulder. He wants the affection. Craves the physical manifestation of that affection when he's hurt and he is hurt. Body and soul. 

“Thought I'd wait until you were more sober to tell you you're stupid so the lesson might stick,” she replies but he feels her fingers in his hair for a second. “So tell me the story of why you were so stupid as to get cut up in an alley.” 

Dick tells her. He tells her about his car being shredded, tells her about finding Jason. He tries to repeat Jason's words to her completely accurately and he'd cursing the fact he recorded nothing because now his brain is fuzzy and his memories are foggy. She listens without interruption, only asking him to clarify this or that and keeping him on topic when he drifts. 

Somehow she manages to herd him inside, get him to drink a lot of water, take his medicine, and get properly situated in bed. “This is why you call in backup before you get maimed in an alley,” she teases and kisses his forehead. “Yell if you need something. Nothing wrong with your lungs or your voice box.”

\-----

Dick's never been a practitioner of lucid dreaming. He knows about it, knows a lot of superhero types who swear by it. But he's always liked seeing where his mind goes and what it comes up with. Then again, he's never been entirely plagued by nightmares like some people he knows. He can afford to not control his dreams. 

He's on his hands and knees on something soft. The scenery around him is murky watercolors and he knows by that alone that this isn't real. That doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy it as a familiar form presses against him, as nude as he is. 

He knows Jason's body well. Knows every dip and scar. He knows his scent but it's changed a bit. There's something warm in it now. Something like vanilla and amber, like a fur coat against the chill of the winter wind. Something as comforting as it is appealing. “I missed you,” Jason murmurs to him and drags his teeth against his throat. 

Dick shudders and gives a shaky laugh. “Isn't that my line?”

“I bet,” the man replies, grinding against him, and Dick can feel his erection against his ass. “I'm sure you missed me, babydoll. I know you missed me fucking you. Greedy little thing like you? You must've been crazy not getting it on the regular.” 

It's a game they play. A risky one, one where Jason's a fraction from an insult. But Dick can't deny he's eager for him, needy for him, a _slut_ for him. Since they started, he has been. He's craved it, thought of it on lonely nights. “Want it so much,” he agrees, arching his back and baring more of his throat. “You gonna give it to me?”

There's no verbal answer. Just the feel of Jason's cock pushing inside him. Dick moans, deciding his dream self had been thoroughly prepared beforehand. Everything feels slick and then he's so full and it's so _good_ in a way he hasn't felt in months. Dick moans loudly, not caring at all who hears, if there's even anyone around in this dreamscape. It's like a craving, like he's a drug addict getting his fix. 

“Please,” Dick whispers, begs. He shivers again, overwhelmed by the sensations rolling along his spine. He's not sure how he got this worked up, or when, but it's like he's been held on edge for days. His cock is so hard it's painful, bouncing beneath him, throbbing in time with each shove inside his ass. 

“So pretty,” Jason rasps in his ear. “So perfect. Like you were made for me. I knew you'd find me. Didn't want you to but-nnngh,” he pauses. He releases his breath in a groan, pounding inside him with a couple of strokes that make Dick's ass clap against his thighs. “Wanted to keep you safe. Far away from me.” 

Ironic, now, since Jason is as close as he possibly can be. It's hard for Dick to think like this, so full of him, surrounded by him. “I want to be with you.” 

Jason topples him forward. Dick has to brace his hands above his head as he's fucked in earnest and _God_ nothing in the world will ever top this. It's like liquid fire in is veins. Sparks that shoot from the base of his spine to behind his closed eyes. Orgasm rises up in him suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. It steals his breath and he loses himself as he comes. Each shove of Jason's cock inside his ass seems to push him further over the edge, seems to keep his gut clenching with a pleasure he never wants to end. 

“Fuck,” Jason drags out the word, giving a last few desperate pumps before Dick hears the tell-tale intake of break that means he's coming. He basks in it. Relishes it. Soaks up the sensation like the rays of the sun on a warm day. “It's dangerous for you to be in Gotham,” his partner murmurs a moment later, arms still around him. 

Dick makes a weak noise. “You fucking suck at pillow talk, even in my head.”

Jason mouths his throat and Dick groans; he almost feels like he might get hard again. “I know I can't get you to leave but it's worth a try.”

He catches the man's mouth in a kiss, despite the seriousness of the topic. “What's happening? Why do I need to leave? You've told me but you haven't explained-”

Jason pulls out of him, his body gone tense. “Just trust me. Remember what happened.” Everything spirals outward from his words. _No_ and _Don't_ and _Not him._ and he blessedly doesn't remember the pain of the knife in his gut. He remembers Jason naked. Remembers Jason holding him. Remembers him _inside_ him. 

Jason hovers over him in his mind. Kisses him. He leans down and whispers, but Dick can't hear what. He reads his lips and swears he says _The moon is starting to wax._ in a voice that isn't his. 

\-----

He wakes up in Barbara's bed with his side itching frantically under a brand new bandage. Daylight is pouring in through the blinds and he groans, tossing his arm over his eyes. He feels like he has the hangover from hell and that hardly seems fair since he had none of the fun to cause it. 

Eventually he finds the energy to roll out of bed. His side still throbs but patting at the wound over the gauze at least soothes the itch. He shuffles into the small kitchen and stares at the various unappetizing foodstuffs before settling on a banana. It's mindless to eat, soft to chew, and hard to get choked on. His head is still aching both with the remnants of the painkillers he took last night and ?

He doesn't notice he has an audience until halfway through the fruit, when he finds Barbara standing there after he shuts the door to her refrigerator. He swigs chocolate milk from the container; he bought it and he's the only person who drinks it here anyway. The best part of having loved someone is that they've already seen you at your worst. Barbara doesn't look at all put off by the fact he's in his underwear in her kitchen, looking like death warmed over, stealing her banana and marking his claim on the half gallon of milk. 

“I'd call you sleeping beauty but you look like you definitely need more beauty sleep,” she informs him. Then more gently, “You feeling better?”

“Like a truck with really pointy bits hit me,” he agrees mildly. “I miss anything?”

Babs helps herself to a banana of her own. “Reviewed footage. You've got to stop getting into trouble outside the range of any cameras. Nothing of any significance or value that I could find.”

“It's definitely Jason,” Dick says, ready to absolutely insist but she doesn't start arguing with him. That makes him pause. “You're not going to debate me?”

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's usually a duck,” she replies with a shrug, peeling her snack and examining it critically. He always used to tease her for being wasteful when she ate around the even slightly brown bits on a banana. “Especially if said duck is prone both to coming back from the dead and making a major, emotionally draining production of it.” 

Dick sighs lightly. Dramatically. “I don't think he wants to make a production of it this time, weirdly.” 

She doesn't answer that, seeing to think it over. “Your phone kept ringing from the same number so I answered it. Didn't know you were on a first-name basis with the guy with the intense Wonder Woman affection but he was worried about you. He wouldn't tell me why, exactly, but he wanted you to call him as soon as you were conscious. I offered to wake you up but he said it could wait unless you slept a few days.” 

That doesn't bode well. Dick is feeling better for having eaten breakfast, meager as it was. There's always this childish impulse in him after he's been hurt to hide out. He wants to go back to bed, pull the covers up over his head, and shut out the world. Abruptly he remembers the first time he'd shared that information with Jason, when they'd spent one rainy afternoon wrapped up together. 

No. He's not going to leave him. No matter what he said. 

“I'm going to give Lucien Samuels a call back,” he decides. “Then I have a few ideas to bounce off you.” 

“You come up with something between last night and now? Or do you still have a plan involving lassoing Jason with licorice twists?”

Dick cringes. “Was I that bad? I don't entirely remember.” 

She grins. It's that same playful expression that made him fall in love with her as Batgirl. “You actually made a lot of sense and were pretty coherent other than suggestions like that. It was impressive.” 

“Good to know.” He heads back into her bathroom to make the call. He's ot sure why he wants privacy since he's going to tell her everything anyway but he doesn't want to feel her stare as he speaks. 

Lucien answers on the second ring. “How are you feeling? You were cut up pretty good.” He doesn't open with any pleasantries, which is a bit startling, but also a bit refreshing. The number of times he's wasted so much effort just performing social niceties is incredible. 

“Surprisingly it isn't awful,” Dick answers with a little laugh. “Itches like crazy but it doesn't really hurt.” 

“I feel just terrible to be the potential bearer of bad news, then.” Lucien's voice is hesitant. “But I'm glad you're not in any pain.” 

Dick's heart seizes a little. “Bad news?”

“The pictures you sent me,” Lucien replies and he feels like he can breathe again. It's about him being screwed. Not about Jason being harmed. “I suppose you realized what it is.” 

“The sign of Leto,” Dick replies, nodding even though the other man can't see him. “A warning?”

He hears the sound of rustling papers. “Sort of. It _is_ the sign of Leto. The moon and an arch over it...the signs of her twins, really, not her own. But you'd notice some modifications have been made and not just stylistically.” 

“I was kind of cut open and bleeding profusely,” Dick reminds him. “I was lucky I remembered to take a picture of it.” 

There's another pause and he recognizes it from those uncomfortable conversations he's had with people. That awkward shame when people realized they were complaining about their parents to an orphan. Of course he'd had more than his fair share of those moments as well. His life wasn't just tragedy; it was a lot of privilege too. “Oh I didn't mean-” Lucien begins.

“It's okay.” He's quick to assure him of that because he doesn't like to leave people dangling on that socially awkward line. He hopes it will maybe get him some karma for the future when he fucks up this way. “But tell me about the modifications.” 

The relief is almost audible as he continues. “There are slashes extending from the edges. Very subtle, but it alters the sign. It marks you not as one of them but as something belonging to them.” 

He feels a pleasant kind of shiver go through him before his logical brain comes up with the fact that it isn't Jason laying claim to him. He can't imagine Jason hovering over his unconscious (or conscious for that matter) form and carving anything into is flesh. “I assume that's bad.” 

“Not always. There are legends about well-regarded concubines, or healers, or people useful to them being marked in such a way. But the alterations? They mark you as a sacrifice.” There's a rustle in the background. “I told you about Dr. Emms? Uhm...Mary Emms, that is. I forwarded the information to her just to confirm.”

Dick pauses in his attempt to slide on a pair of pants that might be decent enough to go out of the apartment wearing. “I'm really not going to like this, am I?”

“Probably not,” Lucien agrees. “But I could be shouting down the walls of Troy for no reason. There's not a lot of definitive information regarding this. I'm certain you've read enough history to know how these things get blown out of proportion. The followers of Leto were rumored to practice human sacrifice though no evidence of this was ever found. People, usually women, joined up with them and were never seen again, but usually this wasn't viewed as anything nefarious other than for polite society. However, then there were uglier rumors. People appearing with a sign much like yours cut or branded on them who disappeared. Left in the wilderness to be run down by wolves seemed to be the favorite method. You know Leto was a goddess of wolves? They protected her in her travels.” 

It's all such a cheerful conversation other than that little tidbit about him being a potential victim of human sacrifice. “What did I do to have this happen?” Though he heavily suspects he knows exactly what. 

“I think it's an elaborate prank,” Lucien admits. “I don't doubt that there are still practitioners of this group who exist, especially on Themyscyra, but I've told you how long they've been removed from this world. I'm assuming someone did their own research and is just trying to cause a scene. Even so...” 

“What?” Dick prompts. He has his pants on and he pulls a shirt over his head. That's a good start to bad news. 

“I wouldn't take any trips to any heavily wooded areas,” the historian replies. “I'm looking into it but the living Amazon sources on my roster are fairly limited.” 

Dick can sympathize. He used to despair pretty regularly that Bruce had a direct line to Diana and he still got a fond smile and a vague pat on the head from her. Not to mention the angered looks from most of the Amazons who had raised her. Certainly Artemis hates him and she-

Before his brain can go off on that tangent, he thanks Lucien, tells him to keep him posted. He hears the man answer something about having Dr. Emms call him and he makes a vague noise of agreement and hangs up. Artemis. She had access to Jason. She'd been watching him. She's as surly as they come but Dick doesn't think she's a bad person. At least not until this moment. 

He wanders back into the main room where Barbara is set up on the couch, working from home. Her day job, judging by her lack of intent focus, and Dick feels a little guilty he's once again interrupted her life. 

“You know any Amazons?” He asks. “Especially any in the city?”

“Not what I expected you to ask,” she replies absently. “I have contacts. I'm not on terms with any of them where we'd go out clubbing.” She seems to reconsider. “Well, we might go clubbing with actual clubs but you understand the relationship here.” 

“Which is to say there's not much of one,” he completes. “There are lots of Amazons in Gotham?”

“Not a lot. They come and go and they usually blend in. They don't set off any of Bruce's meta-human alarms though I bet he could detect them if he wanted to. It isn't that Amazons don't leave their island; it's that they don't stay away unless there are extreme circumstances like banishment.”

He thinks about sitting on the couch with her, decides better, and drapes himself over one of her armchairs. “You do a study on them too?”

She glances up over the rim of her glasses. “It's what I've gathered from listening to them and others who know them. You might try it sometime.” There's no heat to her words and her attention is quickly back on her laptop. She hits a few keys on it. “Is this important enough for me to call in a contact?”

“They might be planning to use me as a human sacrifice. But if that's not enough I think they have Jason and I don't think he can get loose.” Both the thoughts inspire terror but the second is even worse to him. Jason has been someone's puppet for too long. 

Her eyes are serious the next time she looks at him. “You're worth saving, Dick. I know you make light of it but you really are worth being protected. I'd do it for that alone. Now before you get mushy on me for that, did you ever think Jason might want this? I don't know what this entails but he's getting another chance. Maybe he wants to cut ties to Gotham.” 

Any warmth he felt at her reassurance was fading. But she'd unknowingly given him a boost of self confidence as well. He was worth saving and he was worth being with. “He wouldn't want to cut ties to me if he had a choice.” 

She gives him a curt nod. “I'll see if any of my contacts are in the area or reachable at all. I don't keep them on retainer so it may take some time. You get any advice that might help you survive?”

“Avoid wooded areas. Try not to piss anyone off,” he recited, wondering if he needed a cup of coffee before he launched into theories. 

“Difficult for you,” Barbara mused. “I think we can do better. For one, I'd add not going out alone during the full moon and having this wrapped up by then.” 

“When's the next full moon?” Dick asks. 

“Tomorrow night.” 

“Damn.” 

\-----

Inanna boasts of the fact that Diana learned the legends of her people while sitting on her knee. Dick knows she means that she helped to raise Diana but, judging by the size of her knee, she could have been telling her legends just yesterday and there would still be plenty of space on her lap. 

The Amazon is closer to seven feet than to six. She's built like a tree trunk, if a tree had enormous breasts and wide hips. Her hair has gone gray but her face is oddly ageless in that way of near-immortal beings. She's striking-he'd never call her pretty but most definitely she's a handsome woman. He knows from Barbara that Inanna enjoys hustling pool at the rougher bars of Gotham when she's in town and that she can drink anyone under the table. Her normal career involves dating and pricing ancient artifacts and she's remarkably good at her job. Possibly it's because she was alive to see the antiquities when they were new. 

There's something frightening about the Amazons of this age. They are battle-hardened and wise. They don't suffer fools lightly and there's something almost haunted in them from everything they've seen and endured. It's rare that any of the Amazons in this age group leave the Themyscyra and he feels alternately blessed by Barbara's contacts and accepting of the fact that he could be ripped in half by this woman's thighs and die happy. They don't hold a candle to Jason's, for obvious reasons, but they are impressive. 

They treat her like a retained expert or consultant for a trial. Barbara forwards her the information for review before he meets with her. He half expects her to be close-lipped about the entire affair and refuse to meet with him. 

As it turns out, none of the Amazons condone human sacrifice. Especially not of anyone even remotely connected to their princess. 

They get dinner? at one of those pop-up trailers and sit at a picnic table, trying to act inconspicuous. As though the Amazon could blend in anywhere but with other Amazons. “I doubt I can tell you anything more,” Inanna tells him, rolling the base of her cone between her palms. “The worship of Leto that remains among those of us in Themyscyra does not resemble what is left in this world.” 

“The necklace was Amazonium,” he reminds her. 

“I did not say Amazons were not involved,” she replies. “Consider that when we chose to leave the mortal world, there were those who did not agree with us. There were those who chose to stay behind. Undoubtedly this is their work.” Her tongue scoops some ice out and into her mouth. “Many of our sisters had been lost to time when we attempted to locate them. Many more had strayed from our path. The followers of Leto were among them. Always they had been on the fringe but they failed to obey our laws to take only the willing and do not kill in the name of Leto. Spiteful goddess though she was, she was not a dispenser of justice.” 

A good deal of her words go over Dick's head but he's grateful for the foundation of education Bruce laid in his mind about Amazons. They're usually viewed as a monolith, but there are more than enough of them to fill a small country. “You don't know who might be behind it then?”

She shakes her head, using the tiny spoon to rearrange the snow cone to her liking. “If the group still contains Amazons, they left us long ago. I will consult with those followers of Leto who have remained in our homeland.”

Dick isn't sure what he hoped for, except more. He feels as though this is nothing, only having confirmation for a good deal of what Lucien had told him. He has a clearer timeline of events, true, but that doesn't save him from being a sacrifice. “They have my friend,” he explains. “He told me that he has to stay in the city of his birth before moving on. Is that some kind of rule? Will they kill him otherwise?”

“It is ritual,” Inanna explains. “For any group. You must be willing to leave behind your family and embrace your new one. For some that is leaving immediately. For others it is being close enough to make contact and not doing so. Your...friend...you are close to him?”

There's something in her gaze that makes him feel guilty. “We're romantic,” he says, quietly, feeling color bloom in his cheeks because this is like confessing to a parental figure that you're doing more than making out and the condoms aren't really to be used as water balloons. 

“Aha,” she replies. “You are the biggest threat to his full conversion. You've been marked because they know he will choose you.” 

“I'd feel better if I hadn't been marked to be dropped in the woods and eaten by wolves,” he says miserably, wanting to bask in self pity more than he wants to eat the line of lime-flavored ice in his rainbow snow cone. “We had a couple of trained wolves at the circus when I was a kid. I should have made better friends with them.”

Inanna stares at him. He thinks he will have to explain about the circus because she looks so puzzled. “Why would they drop you in the woods and leave you for wolves?” she questions. 

“Because I'm a sacrifice? I was told that's how they used to sacrifice men. By giving them to the wolves of Leto.” 

Realization dawns in Inanna's eyes. “You are not a simple sacrifice,” she says, and she's already demolished most of her snack while Dick picks at his. “You are their prey.” 

It feels like there is some kind of poor translation between them, even if they were speaking the same language. “The prey of the wolves,” he says slowly, enunciating every word carefully. 

“They are the wolves,” she replies, and Dick realizes that he's been suspecting this all along, somehow. “Blessed by Leto in honor of the wolves which accompanied her in Lycia. Given the ties to the moon in honor of her daughter and the healing powers of her son.”

“Werewolves,” Dick says, only a little incredulous. “There are Amazon werewolves in Gotham.” 

“Not at all times,” Inanna says, a bit defensively. “As their numbers dwindled they would only gather in one location for a new pup or a new recruit to make certain the proper traditions were observed. A full pack can not live together at all times. The Lupa would no longer be a significant event were it every month.” 

He has a million questions but imagines the Amazon is not going to deal as well with him verbally exploding all over her. The wolves are here for Jason. They are here for- “Explain the process to me, if you can,” he says slowly. He tries to take a bite from the top of the melting snow cone. The flavoring feels sticky-sweet in his mouth. 

The woman nods. “Traditionally to gain new recruits, they would be inducted. Women aren't born to be wolves, after all. Once they were turned, the woman would have to remain in her homeland for twelve cycles of the moon, without being swayed to return to her former life. Then she was free to do as she wished.” There's an air of a storyteller about her. Dick would think it was pleasant to listen to her under most other circumstances. 

“You keep saying women. Are there not men in this group?”

Her shoulder twitches in what he supposes is a shrug. “There were not in my time and there are not any male followers of Leto on Themsycyra. Of course the followers have changed since then. Nothing forbids men from joining the ranks.” 

He thinks of men in these traditionally female groups. “Do you know a Lucien Samuels? Runs the museum about Wonder Woman?”

Inanna cocks her head before a grin stretches her broad face and full lips. “I remember him! With the white hair?” She makes a gesture over her head, tracing the pattern that his hair seems to fall in. “I spoke with him once on a new exhibit he wanted to do. There were other scholars there but he stood out. He was enthusiastic.” 

Dick imagines he was definitely enthusiastic having an Amazon there to answer his questions. He scrambles to think of the name of another consultant. “He said something about a Dr. Mary Emms being the prime source for information on Leto?” A moment later he grimaces because he knows he's using the word 'prime' incorrectly. 

The Amazon seems to get his meaning anyway. She's finished her snow cone and is rolling the container up into a tiny paper ball. She frowns, apparently intensely interested in her trash before she speaks. “Our paths have not crossed often, and so I would hate to speak ill of a woman I do not know,” she replies carefully. “But she has been quite forward with some of my sisters to receive information, about the worship of Leto, as well as some other sects. We were kind to her in the beginning – she's quite small and quite fragile. I believe she has some type of illness?” Her gaze lifts and Dick shrugs, because he hasn't even done a cursory internet search of her name. If this were an actual case he would be about forty steps behind. “We decided to restrict access on certain information, to everyone,” Inanna says at last. 

“Am I not everyone?” Dick teases, turning on the charm, flirting with her a little while his mind races with other implications. 

She looks more amused by him than anything. “You aren't asking for the information we chose to protect. You are asking how to keep yourself safe, aren't you?” 

He is, in a way. “This is going to sound insane,” he begins, glancing around as though someone might be listening. It's hard for sound to carry over the noise of shrieking, playing children. No one can sneak up on them in the open space they've chosen. He launches into his tale, and most of it she already knows. Barbara has told her a lot, but Dick supplies details. He tells her about Jason, he tells her he wants to save Jason _and_ himself but if it comes down to it then he absolutely wants to save Jason first. 

She listens. She rests her chin on her hands some of the time and other times she interjects. Her gaze is piercing. When he tells Barbara these things, he feels like he's making a confession. He feels like he's unloading all the sins of his soul onto her and she'll give him absolution. With Inanna it's almost like talking to Bruce; he's a little afraid. He feels judged. He feels like he's twelve years old again and he didn't do his best on a math test. 

When he gets to the part about his side being carved up she asks to see. He shows her pictures off his phone instead and she makes a teasing remark about wanting to get her hands on a young man again that _almost_ makes him blush but it does an excellent job relieving the tension. 

After the story is told, when there's been enough silence between them to leave him squirming in his seat, Inanna passes her judgment. “I would like to help you,” she says. “I believe you have many who would like to help you. Did you think perhaps your friend wanted this? Wants a clean start away from this place?”

Dick has thought of that. “I think he feels he doesn't have a choice,” he replies. The next bit is riskier. He almost doesn't say it out loud. Like breathing the words into the air gives them life. “I think if he thought he had a choice then he would stay with me.” 

He's not sure what he's afraid of. He'd said he _thought_. It didn't obligate Jason to do anything. To want to stay with him. Maybe he knew, deep down, that it was foolish to hope. As much as he is the bright, optimistic Robin, life has handed him several unfortunate doses of realism. 

The woman doesn't laugh at him, merely smiles that secretive smile and looks contemplative of it all. “I truly wish there was a simple solution. I can tell you that the opportunity will present itself. Perhaps look deeper into the research of the doctor suggested to you?”

He's not sure if it's a hint, but it feels frustrating all the same. “I don't really like prophecies,” he informs her. 

“Then it is a good thing I am not a prophet. Maybe your Oracle will have an answer you appreciate more.” She folds her hands in front of her. “Now, perhaps you might be persuaded to show me your wound and buy me another iced treat.” 

\-----

He has one more night until the full moon and he's out of ideas. He's looked up how to cure werewolfism and come up empty for anything not fatal. Barbara has asked around. Even Bruce has asked around and, to his credit, taken a rain check on why Dick needs this information in the first place.

The wound itches more and more, and he religiously applies salve and dressings to it, and he thinks it's very slow to heal but that it won't scar. Small mercies if he survives and is alive long enough for it to finish healing. 

Lucien Samuels has been out of contact, though Mary Emms has called him instead. She'd offered lunch, then dinner, and Dick apologetically (but truthfully) told her he'd been called out of town. Bludhaven has been doing well under Tim's care but he still needs to make an appearance, lest the rogues forget Nightwing protects the city. 

Dr. Emms had been amazingly unhelpful considering Dick has read her work and the intensity of the material had almost burned his eyes. It's clear she loves the topic of ancient cults, it's obvious most of what Lucien knows about the cult of Leto he learned from her work. Yet her words are airy, evasive, and he feels like she only repeats what he's been told before. 

“She's probably on some heavy medication,” Barbara offers when he complains about it. “She's in the later stages of a neurological condition. It's painful before it's fatal.” 

He feels guilty, then, but it finally adds up why the Amazons don't seem to care for her. She'd been ruthless in her tactics to gather information she needed, but it was difficult to hold hostility against the terminally ill. 

He's warned that it's safer to stay away. Barbara tells him to fly to Bermuda or somewhere. But he's drawn back to Gotham, back to Jason, like a heartbeat. Even the thought of getting on a plane makes him feel nauseated and he's not sure if that's magic or heartache. 

It's dawn before he makes it back. Barbara calls him a moment after he arrives at his favorite apartment, sighs, and hangs up. He doesn't blame her. 

He doesn't live in this apartment full time, but he tends to gravitate toward it. It's on a high floor with windows that open and nice little ledges all around. The bathtub is deep enough for soaking, even if the water takes a while to get hot, and the mattress is one that he let Bruce buy him and is just the right amount of softness. 

He feels like one of the three bears from a fairy tale when he creeps inside. There's a lamp on that he was sure he didn't leave lit and isn't hooked into a timer. An empty bowl sits in the sink with a bit of water standing in it. The throw pillows in his armchair have been mushed down where someone has used them for lumbar support. 

But most obviously? There's someone sleeping in his bed. A large, human lump beneath the blankets, breathing softly, but not evenly enough for Dick to think this Goldilocks is asleep. His door makes the security system beep whenever it's opened no doubt what had awoken the stranger. 

Dick's exhausted. His fingers twitch toward his escrima sticks, but he almost considers simply leaving and crashing somewhere else. Let the strange intruder have his bed, it isn't worth the bother. Then the man rolls over, and just the sight of his bicep is enough for Dick to realize it's Jason. 

“You were supposed to be gone,” Jason slurs and he's not sure if he's scolding him because he should be gone for his own protection or if he's annoyed that he can't commandeer Dick's bed for himself. 

“Yeah, well, it seems like we both have trouble staying away.” He feels like he's being snippy but he also imagines he has every right to be. It's been a rough few weeks. It's been a rough year if he's honest. Most, if not all, of the roughness is related to Jason, too. “You're in my bed.” 

This could go one of two ways. Probably more ways, actually, but the main conundrum with Jason is always if he sees something as an excuse to pick a fight. Removing Jason from anywhere he's comfortably bedded down does indeed tend to cause fights. Dick feels relief roll through him, feels tension in his shoulders ease, when Jason stretched languidly and smirks. “Gonna throw me out?”

Dick's aware that he, too, could counter the situation with violence. He could demand Jason get out of his bed. He could physically attack him for everything he's been through. He could scream, and throw things, and honestly part of him does want to have a temper tantrum. He's largely curbed them but the urge is bright and present because _just who the fuck does Jason think he is?_

The sentence must've slipped out, because those impossibly green eyes narrow slightly. "Aw," Jason says, trying for pitiful but the noise comes out a little mocking. "You're not going to be able to make me a grilled cheese if you're mad at me."

"Making you a grilled cheese isn't you doing me a favor," he retorts. "You always complain I make them the wrong way, too." Always being the two (or possibly three) times he's done it. Dick knows how to cook - maybe not as well as some of the others but he's passable. Grilled cheese is easy to make when he's ready to fall into bed but can't due to the gnawing of his empty stomach. He'd gone through a phase of experimenting with different types of bread and cheese but ultimately it came down to what was at hand, be it a slice of plastic American cheese product or baked brie left over from a party. 

Jason is gorgeous when he stretches. He swings his legs out of bed and he's all muscle and flesh and scars. There's hair too - more than Dick has - but it might as well be invisible on the rest of the package. An extra gift ribbon on an already attractive package. "You gotta use mayonnaise. Cover the bread in it so it stays nice and moist while you cook it. Then the bread stays fluffy and-" 

"Nasty," Dick cuts in. "You press down on the bread so it melds with the cheese." 

He's almost disappointed as Jason slides into a pair of shorts. "That isn't a sandwich that's just melted cheese with an accent of bread." 

"Better than your mayonnaise sandwich." They've had this discussion before, though maybe not quite this hostile. Still, it's reassuring to Dick and he thinks that, maybe, things can be normal for a brief moment. 

There are groceries he didn't buy in his fridge. Jason gets things out and it appears he'll be making his own grilled cheese. Dick isn't sure if he's disappointed. He wishes he would have had the distraction. Especially when he blurts out, "You left me." 

He sees every muscle (and there are a lot of them) in Jason's back tense and ripple with restraint. Restraint of what? Rage? Grief? It's obviously some emotion but Jason remains an emotional brick wall. It's not the first time that Dick's thought Jason was like Bruce; they're enough alike that they butt heads constantly. There's plenty to dislike in Bruce, as much as there's more to love, but he knows from experience that all of the Robins lash out the most over traits they see in themselves. "Can we-" Jason begins, not turning to look at him. "Can we maybe not? Tonight? I'm not trying to be an asshole here but I don't want to deal with that tonight." 

Against his will, Dick feels his eyebrows lift. He's not sure who he's questioning silently, God or himself. This is a surprising show from Jason, a surprising amount of restraint as well. "Yeah," he agrees softly. "We can put a pin in that for tonight, but I do eventually want to discuss it." 

There's nothing but the sound of the condiment soaked bread hitting a hot pan. Dick tips his head to see what kind of cheese Jason has; it's the stuff that is shelf-stable and incredibly strong. But it makes one hell of a grilled cheese. 

He lets him cook one sandwich, and waits for him to slide it onto a plate and gesture to him to retrieve it. Dick slowly approaches, standing so Jason is against the stove and he's against the counter beside him. "You want me to go get you a steak?"

Jason looks at him out of the corner of his eye, distrustful. It does sound like the set-up to a bad joke so he doesn't feel as odd about it as he normally would. "Why would I want you to go get me a steak?"

Dick shrugs and tries to look casual. Except to those who know him well, him trying to look casual is utterly incriminating. He sees by the way Jason tenses again that the man does know him very well. "I thought werewolves were carnivores," he says evenly, because he'll be damned if he just stands here in the kitchen with a twice-dead man who he's only been alone with in a dream and an alley way lately and act like absolutely nothing is wrong. Their lives are screwy enough to begin with but this is another level of that. 

The tension feels heavy. Like air loaded with condensation, ready for a summer storm to rip through it, to soak everything beneath it with rain and wreck destruction on the citizens of an unsuspecting world. Dick imagines he can taste the impending doom. 

"Stop that," Jason says. "You don't have to be afraid of me." 

"I'm not _afraid_ of you," he retorts. He is, however, afraid of the situation. Afraid of those consequences of the fall-out, and he can't imagine Jason would usually pick up on that, let alone vocalize it. Jason confessed to him once that he still has trouble seeing aspects of him as anything but perfect. It's flattering, when you've been with a man who has seen you through several cripplingly embarrassing incidents and only brings up the ones you can still take with good humor. "But should I be? Werewolf and all?"

Fortunately, it's taken for the joke it is. Jason sneers a little and flips the sandwich on the stove. "Your food is getting cold." 

"Don't care," Dick says. "If you keep avoiding the question I'm going to spontaneously combust or something." 

"Wouldn't be the first time and maybe then it would be warm in here. Why do you keep it so cold then pile like fifty blankets on your bed?" He pauses a beat. Dick stares at him. Not with any kind of hostility, but just with a little bit of judgment, as he does when he wants to sway someone to his line of thinking about things without having to verbalize it. "Fine," Jason says, defeated. "What do you want to know?"

"Uh," Dick begins sarcastically, taking a bite of his sandwich at last. The cheese burns his mouth a little which might have been Jason's plan all along. Feed him molten cheese and escape while his mouth is still too burned to talk. "Everything. Start at the beginning." 

"I was born in Gotham," Jason tells him. "In the bathtub in some rat hole apartment because my mom was too strung out to risk going to the hospital. I think I was conceived in the backseat of a -" 

"God," Dick sighs with something like love. "You're such an asshole." _I missed it._ goes unspoken, but the glimmer in Jason's eye confirms that he understood the silent message. 

They sit at the small kitchen table that barely has room for two plates and two glasses of watter. It's some ungodly hour - Dick doesn't bother to check the clock - and it's that time where a hush has fallen over the city. Not a silence. But there's a pause, like Gotham's taking a break and steadying herself for the day ahead. It's the same thing Jason appears to be doing for the conversation ahead as he picks at his sandwich, tears it apart into little pieces and begins popping them into his mouth. It's such an absurdly dainty way to eat for such a large man. 

"I fell and hit the water," Jason begins awkwardly. "I don't remember much after that, because apparently I was dead. Again." They haven't discussed what Jason remembers of his last brush with death but Dick imagines it wasn't pleasant and nor was this. "When I woke up it was with Artemis."

He must have made a sound. A hiss of air through his teeth. Jason looks at him, awkward and defensive at once. "Not like that. There's no reason to get pissy."

"What, pissy because someone lied to me about you and then did-"

"It wasn't like that," Jason cuts in. "So shut your mouth and listen."

That, too, is something Bruce would say and coming from that man, Dick would rage against them and shout. He glowers at Jason instead and eats another bite of his grilled cheese, tearing into it with his canines. 

"It was the only way to save my life," he continues. "Internal injuries and shock and broken bones...no chance to even call for help. So she marked me for her goddess and they inducted me into the group. Honestly most of that is pretty fuzzy. I don't think I could string more than a couple of sentences together for over a month. It took another before I could figure out what happened to me." 

The silence stretches on too long so Dick prompts. "Which was?"

Jason makes a face, somewhere between disgust and a grimace. "I was like a wolf. Sharper senses. I could run faster and further. But they kept me on a pretty tight leash - jokes aside. I tried to leave the city once and it was like running into an invisible wall. I tried to lay low in a safehouse and they found me within a couple of hours." 

Something in Dick is enraged at that, because he's always seen Jason as so free. "I'm surprised anyone can fence you in." 

There's the ghost of emotion in Jason's eyes and Dick doesn't like it. It's not quite fear, but there's a disquiet there that says Jason didn't think anyone could fence him in either. "I haven't studied them long enough," he admits. "I was just kind of thrown in. But until you hit a certain number of moon cycles you're tied to a place. Not sure if it's because I was born here or I died here but I'm stuck." He hesitates. Dick wants to urge him to go faster and blurt it all out. He wants to touch him again. He does neither. "They told me it's a test. That I can't go back to my old life and have to stay away from anyone I knew before. 

Dick feels a little sick. There was a time when Jason would have been thrilled about that and happy to have an excuse to cut ties. Maybe he still would be, but Jason has never responded well to someone telling him what he has to do."Artemis told you?"

His shoulders sag a bit. "No, Artemis has been great. She's not really a part of the whole mess, kinda a lone wolf." He pauses, smirks. "I didn't intend that pun but I'll take it. Anyway, I don't remember the first few times I turned into a wolf at the full moon. I apparently stayed in the park and kept to myself." 

"Except to eat a mugger," Dick points out, because this conversation has gotten so serious he can't stand it.

"I'm glad the fucker got his balls ripped off but I regret that they were in my mouth," Jason agrees. "The people...the pack... they aren't bad as people. They just follow some kind of archaic bullshit and no one ever asked me if I wanted to be part of their club." 

Dick is disappointed his sandwich is gone and he doesn't remember finishing it. He takes a large swallow of water. "Except for the part where they carved a symbol into my skin and plan to hunt me like a bunny rabbit?"

That does seem to get a genuine reaction of rage that pleases him perhaps more than it should. He's not sure when he developed this feeling of enjoying having Jason be protective of him but it's certainly there. "That's on me," he admits. "My punishment for being too attached. But we're not going to let anything happen to you. The first step would have been you getting the fuck out of Gotham but, let me guess, you felt like you couldn't stay away?"

He groans. He hates this magical stuff when it's directed at him. "Do they know who you are? Who we are?"

"Most of them are fossilized Amazons and even the ones who aren't rarely come to Gotham. I don't think they know and if they do then they don't care. Shit would've been a lot easier if I told them they'd bring the wrath of Batman on their heads for messing with you. Instead they think you're just some rich man's kid." 

Dick's used that to his advantage quite a bit so he can't complain. “How many times have you turned into a wolf now?"

"Eight? Nine? I don't remember. MY memories of it are hazy too but Art says that's normal. It's traumatic to do and takes a while before you keep your conscious human thoughts and remember everything." He sighs. "I was just going to put in my time and then get out. Find somewhere to live quietly and lock myself up one night a month. It seemed like the plan would've worked too except you came looking for me." 

"Damn, I am a meddlesome kid," Dick teases. Jason doesn't react. His mouth doesn't even twitch. "Seriously though. You weren't careful. You sure you didn't want to be found?"

He hates that weak need in his question. It gives Jason the ability to shatter him. And, honestly, Dick's always had a problem with loving someone too much and being attached too soon and he doesn't blame them for not returning his affections, but it still hurts when they don't. He's been playing it so cool with Jason for so long that he's not sure if he's played himself right into a corner where real feelings are never allowed to factor in. 

"I wanted you to be safe," Jason replies softly, trying to be gentle. Jason Todd wanting to spare anyone's feelings is a miracle in and of itself. "But if you're asking if I wanted to cut ties then, no, I didn't really want to go out that way." 

They sit in silence for another little while as Jason finishes his food and Dick contemplates making another couple of grilled cheese sandwiches for the sake of comparison and because anything is better sitting here absorbing the fact that Jason turns into a wolf once a month, doesn't remember ripping off some guy's dick, and is in some kind of cult against his will. 

"I would have said something to you if I could have kept you safe," Jason says softly. "I would have told you after hazing probation hell, if nothing else." He meets Dick's gaze and it is at once uncomfortable and thrilling. "Promise." 

He wants to cry. He wants to tell Jason how awful it was for him to fake his death, and how much he suffered. But he supposes the shoe really is on the other foot. "So you being seen on camera wasn't for me?"

Jason snorts. "Didn't count on Babs having cameras were I was...or actually putting two and sixteen together because this shit definitely isn't two and two."

It feels more like two and some insurmountable number. Dick has a million questions but he's exhausted, and he hurts for Jason, and he's a little scared for them both. He asks him to tell him about what's happened in his life since he fell off a bridge. 

Daily life hasn't truly changed for Jason. His activities as the Red Hood have been much more limited - the rumors Bruce heard of the Red Hood pulling strings but never showing his face seem to have been true after all. His shoulder joint still catches from where it was mangled in the fall. Artemis is, relatively speaking, his only link between the outside world and this strange one of wolves. He sometimes has a babysitter werewolf, and sometimes not, and they are excellent at stealth and Jason has found a bunch of ways to piss them off but no fool-proof way to escape. He hasn't been able to get into contact with any superheroes who know about this, he will ask Bruce for help when it snows in Hell, and he doesn't want any of the rest of them to get killed. 

Or marked, it seems, and that's certainly what Dick is. Marked to be hunted as Jason's punishment. "But that won't happen," Jason assures him. "Just stay barricaded in a safehouse, alright? In the Cave if you need to. Only for a night." 

It seems to easy to promise him. 

Daylight is creeping in when they finish their chat and Dick is bone-weary as they head to bed. At least, until he catches sight of Jason staring at him. There's dismay at the bandage on his side but otherwise? Jason looks like he wants to eat him up but in the very best of ways. 

“What?” Dick asks, climbing into bed and stretching until he swears every bone in his body has popped and resettled. 

Jason slides in beside him. The bed is big enough to fit another person in it with them but it feels like the man fills it up with his presence alone. His heavy arm slides over Dick, higher on his ribcage than usual, avoiding the bandage. He draws him close to kiss the shell of his ear and whispers, “I want you.” 

Dick shivers. He's always had this piece of him, this little orphan, that longs to be told that. He _has_ been told that. Countless times, by friends and lovers and caregivers alike. There's something in the way Jason says it. Something incredible, how those three words can make him feel both loved and ridiculously turned on at once. How he wants to cry from it, how he wants to kiss Jason until they pass out from lack of air, how he wants to hide out here with him for the rest of their lives. He settles, instead, for getting hard. He gets hard so rapidly that he swears he gets dizzy though realistically he knows that's just Jason's proximity and the fact he's off his feet after so long on them. “It won't solve anything,” he whispers, trying so hard to be logical. “We shouldn't.” He can't think of any reason why, except that they are already adrift in a storm of feelings and this might be the lightning strike that brings them down. 

“I know,” the other admits, but they start to strip anyway. There's not much to strip off, since Dick's removed his uniform and put on shorts and Jason started that way to begin with. They are both terrible at doing what is good for them, instead of following their baser instincts. 

"You want it?" Jason murmurs and Dick feels his cock, thick and hard and ready against his ass. "You ready for your greedy little hole to swallow me up? That's what you've been wanting, isn't it? Wanting me to fill you so full?"

It's dirty talk extrodinare and normally Dick would protest a little. He's not nearly worked up or drunk enough to let his mouth run away with him that far. But it feels so right in this situation. He nods. Whimpers. His eyes lock with Jason's. "Need you to fuck me," he agrees in a breathy voice. 

"Need me to stretch you open?" Jason prompts. "Need me to fuck you until you're just a mewling, boneless little slut?" 

Normally he's not this aggressive with it. Normally it's Dick who breaks out the filthy language first and drags Jason along for the ride. It's thrilling. Humiliating in a way, but it simply adds to the experience. 

"All of it, need you," Dick says and in case that's getting too sappy, he surges up for a light kiss. "Need your shaft in me, need you to fucking pound me through the floor. I want to drown in you." 

The words are a bad choice, given how a drowning started all of this, but Jason just grins at him and looks feral with how many teeth he shows. He pushes inside. Limited prep, some lube, but Dick relishes in that little bit of pain as he stretches to accomodate him and he doesn't want it any other way. 

Their breathing is ragged. Both of them on edge. Neither of them are small men, and the bed is solidly built, but Dick has a momentary fear for its craftsmanship. He's not sure when he got this needy, or when Jason did, but he imagines it was at some point when they both thought they would never experience this again. 

One of Dick's legs is over a broad shoulder, the other hinged wide with his foot planted on the bed for balance. He ends up lifting onto his toes as Jason pulls him higher. 

And then he's full. Jason shoves inside and it fills him, stretches him, makes him struggle for breath and that's probably a good thing because otherwise he'd be screaming. Calling down the Heavens, cursing the demented wolves who had ever taken this away from him. 

Jason wastes no time. This isn't some slow and sweet game. They kiss and Dick's lips will be bruised, swollen from pressure and teeth nipping at them. Jason thrusts and Dick moans into his mouth. Each shove is rough, brutal, just the way they always go at it when someone has too much adrenaline and needs to burn it off. When Jason came home reeking of smoke from narrowly escaping a firebomb in his warehouse. When Dick was home with suit torn half off and a knife wound that would have gutted him if he'd just been a little slower. Different places each time. Rooftops, safe houses, wherever. They're coming home to each other, not to a place. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Dick chants, lifts his hips higher, responds even more eagerly to him. 

"I am," Jason grits out and Dick likes to think his ability to quip is rubbing off on him. "Oh, fuck, baby, I'm fucking you." 

It should seem ridiculous. But it fits. Fits them. All Dick can do in response is moan. Loudly, voicing his pleasure, encouraging his partner. "Missed this," he confides. "Nnn, no one fucks me like you do." 

"No one?" Jason leans down and mouths his neck, licks over his pulse point. “No one scratches that desperate, slutty itch you have? No one fills you up like I do? No one fucks you until you can't even form words with those pretty cock-sucking lips?”

Dick whines and Jason smirks. “Just like that. Sing like a pretty bird for me, baby.” 

There's not a prayer of Dick holding out, of Dick making him work hard for it. He's convinced nothing has ever felt this good before and it never will again. Jason has barely moved a hand between them to grab his erection and he comes with an embarrassing cry, the rival of any songbird. 

Jason grins. Thrilled with it. Dick's eyes are half-open and he feels like he _sees_ the truth behind what he is now. Feels like he sees Jason as the wolf, as this possessive, wild creature. He's not sure he can ever come down from his orgasm with that idea in mind. 

Or with his partner continuing to fuck him. Jason is big under the best of circumstances and with Dick so tense under him suddenly he feels positively huge. It's bordering on pain which, of course, makes the pleasure all that much more intense. 

He swears he feels Jason spill inside him, swears it's so hot that it burns but he knows that's not possible either. He kisses him, muffles his moans, drinks them down as he gives a last few desperate pumps of his hips. 

The shower he needs isn't going to happen tonight. Dick knows that. Knows it as he feels Jason's breath soft against his ear that he's not going to leave his side for a moment longer than he has to. Which is why he whines pitifully when the man pulls out of him and goes to grab a cloth to clean up with.

He's half asleep when Jason gets back. He's pulled into his arms and it feels so warm and safe. “Promise me you'll stay inside tomorrow,” Jason murmurs. “Promise me you'll stay safe.”

Dick promises. Jason hums, a song Dick can't quite grasp the melody of but it soothes him, keeps him from arguing. Since he was a child and went to bed to the sound of his mother singing, it's always soothed him, and he wants to scold Jason that it's a cheap trick. 

He falls asleep instead, and he swears he feels Jason's teeth against his neck. 

\-----

Lucien Samuels returns his call when Dick is sitting at his desk the next day, feeling proud of himself for getting through a number of his case files. Vigilantism doesn't come with a ton of paperwork but it certainly comes with a lot of territory that can't be covered physically by a patrol. It's not and never has been Dick's favorite part of the job but it's good to keep him bus when he's too injured to go out or, like at this moment, when he's made promises about not taking unncessary risks. 

He's due for dinner at the Manor before sunset and then he'll continue his work in the Batcave, with Batman's resources, and if anyone questions him he thinks 'werewolves' is enough of an explanation. Jason hadn't even teased him about running home to daddy in those brief moments this morning when the man had headed out. He's trying to take his safety seriously. 

He has a peanut butter sandwich and is contemplating layering it with marshmallow fluff. There's a side of potato chips that are only slightly stale. Luckily the bite he's taken of the sandwich is small enough that he can finish chewing and swallow before his phone runs out of rings. 

Still, his voice comes out as slightly garbled when he answers. “Mr. Grayson? Is this a bad time?”

“Just having lunch,” Dick replies. “What's up?” He's a little embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that since he's reconnected with Jason he has less use for Lucien. It's not a sexual thing, or even a flirting thing. It's just a simple matter of having access to Jason now. Of _knowing_. But that's cruel because Lucien really has been of great help to him. 

“Dr. Emms had some time open in her schedule,” Lucien tells him and he sounds excited enough that Dick thinks this is a big deal and the good doctor doesn't usually grace the halls of a Wonder Woman museum. 

“I'm a little busy tonight...” Dick tries to make it sound like he has a date or some function to attend instead of that he promised his werewolf boyfriend he'd stay out of harm's way. 

“Of course,” Lucien agrees. “I know you'll probably just want to stay in tonight. Maybe hire some armed guards.” It feels like neither of them know if that comment is to be taken seriously, so the man plows through the awkwardness. “But maybe this afternoon? I've pulled some research about a repellent to wolves, though Dr. Emms says it's all folklore and there's nothing to be worried about. She wants to put your fears to rest.” He pauses. “And I'd like her ear on a few projects I have coming up.” 

Lucien is so painfully honest that it's hard to be angry. For all Jason Todd is the patron saint of underdogs, Dick Grayson likes to root for them too. “What time?”

\-----

He has to wait a while after ringing the bell for Lucien to open the door. The museum itself is locked. The windows are dark. A little sign announces that the museum is closed on this particular day every week, which isn't all that unusual for establishments that tend to stay open on weekends. 

He's about to text Lucien, or give up all together, when the man appears and he hears the locks tumble. There's quite a few of them – he wonders if the building came pre-equipped or if this is really that bad of an area. “Mr. Grayson. Thank you for coming on such short notice. We'll try to make it as brief as possible.” He pauses, hesitates a step in front of him as he leads him through the halls of the museum that are darkened and spooky. Dick's used to creeping through abandoned buildings and actual super villain lairs and a mannequin wearing an early prototype of an Amazonian uniform still nearly makes him scream when he catches sight of it out of the corner of his eye. 

“It's no trouble,” Dick replies even though it is a little trouble and he feels like he's breaking a promise to Jason every breath he takes out of a designated safehouse. It's his public face, and it seems like Lucien has started to see right through it. 

“Don't,” he says softly. “I know it's trouble. I appreciate your donation to the museum and I'm always happy to talk shop so to speak but I know you've gotten what you needed and you're just here because I asked you to be.” He avoids eye contact. Dick thinks he might be a little ashamed of himself and it seems like such a minor thing for him to feel embarrassed about in a world of people asking Bruce Wayne's son for a donation in the amount that would pay for a house or trying to profit off his personal life. It had been a nightmare trying to dodge blackmailers before he'd simply come out as bisexual publicly and he remembers the feeling all too well. 

He makes a noise that the other man must take as protesting because he sees his hand lift in the darkness. There's a pool of light at the end of the hallway and Dick knows they are heading toward the small, cluttered offices in the back. 

“I do appreciate it. Dr. Emms is...well nothing really happens in my field of study without her say so and she can be very difficult to reason with. I'm sorry to use you to get to her but...” He shrugs. “I understand if you want to leave. I won't hold it-”

“No,” Dick says as gently as he can manage. He rests a hand on Lucien's frail shoulder. “I understand. You're in a tight spot.” 

“It's horrible,” he muses, voice dropping to conspirator levels. “Everyone in this field of anthropology had resigned themselves to the fact she was on her way out and maybe would be replaced by someone more reasonable.” 

It _is_ a rough way to think of terminal illness but Dick also knows that feeling of benefiting from someone else's misfortune all too well and the petty guilt that comes with it. “But I'm your way in that much sooner.” 

Lucien nods. 

Dick smiles. “Happy to do it, then. You've helped me out as much as you can and I really appreciate it.” And Dr. Emms? It seemed like she hadn't wanted to bother at all. Dick couldn't hold it against her. She probably had bigger things on her mind and he knows no one owes him their professional courtesy when he hasn't hired them. 

Lucien's office has been cleaned up since he was last there. Some of the personal knickknacks have been removed. Instead of being scattered across his desk, books are neatly stacked on the edge. 

Mary Emms is sitting in one of the wing-backed chairs, looking frail and small and like she might disappear into the furniture. Her stance seems to be the only thing keeping her from it; she looks like she's ready for a fight, somehow. 

Introductions are made. Mary seems disappointed she can't see the wound carved into his skin since it's freshly bandaged after his shower this morning. Lucien starts in with a lot of the information he heard from Jason. He reports, too, that there haven't been any cases of people being mauled to death by wolves though adds a cryptic misnomer that the evidence could have been buried or eaten. 

Mary huffs. “Truly, you shouldn't worry. Have you told anyone else about this nonsense?”

He's been around the block enough to know this trick. “No one. Who wants to deal with a spoiled rich boy yelling about wolves?”

She looks smug about that. Lucien looks a little put out, so Dick adds, “Mr. Samuels has been amazing, though. I know all I ever wanted to know and more about that necklace I won in auction.” The necklace that had started it all. It's still safely stashed in his underwear drawer. “I'm definitely going to book some events at the museum.” 

The pale man flushes pleasantly at that and Dick is glad to throw some compliments his way. He doubts it will matter in the long run but he's trying to offer something back. 

They chat. It's mostly information Dick has gained through Inanna, or through Jason himself. Dr. Emms dismisses a lot of it as superstition and apologizes that some want to be cultists have decided to play a joke on Dick. Lucien looks like he disagrees, but he doesn't contradict her. 

There are some gruesome illustrations of the man-eaters that Lucien shows him. There are some interesting mating rituals that get glossed over, but Dick finds it romantic that allowances are made for mates, even though Leto never found her true love. 

“How rude of us,” Mary says after a half hour where Dick has been watching the clock. “Would you like some coffee?”

He does a poor job stifling a yawn. “Yeah, that'd be great actually.” It's probably going to be bad coffee but that's okay. He can reward himself on his way to dinner. 

Lucien rises to his feet. “I'll get it. Would you like anything, Dr. Emms?”

“Coffee is fine. I just made a pot.” She waits until Lucien is halfway down the hall to call out “Decaf, please!” She laughs. It's the most mirth Dick's heard her enjoy. She doesn't seem like a very joyful woman. “I'll be up all night otherwise.” 

That at least gives him hope that the coffee here is okay because who would drink it otherwise if not for the caffeine?

“I really hope Lucien hasn't alarmed you,” Mary continues, and Dick should start keeping count of how many times she says it. It's like she's trying to avoid getting sued. “You know some academics just completely live in a fantasy world.” 

Yeah, Dick thinks, a fantasy world where men put on capes to fight crime and your boyfriend comes back from the dead more than once. “The history lesson was interesting, anyway,” he says. He doesn't want to start a fight between them. He's trying to give the most neutral responses possible. 

“I'm sure,” she replies smoothly. “All of these magical healing cults can be interesting and the Amazonian ones in particular have interesting promise. There's a cult in Indonesia that-” 

Dick is still listening to her when Lucien returns with a tray. The mugs are all different colors and clearly not from a set. There are packets of sugar and creamer in the center of the tray. He's relieved to have something to do with his hands as he adds the appropriate amounts of either and stirs with one of the little wooden sticks. 

Mary wants to hear his story, so he tells her the version he told Lucien. “This must be really boring,” he concludes, because he feels exhausted after finishing and he told her the abridged version. 

“Oh, no. I always enjoy hearing what stories might end up in research papers,” Mary replies and he thinks Lucien colors slightly. 

Dick stares at the tiny amount of coffee left in his cup. It hadn't been bad. He thinks he might need some more; it's going to be a long night not only with Bruce but of staring at a computer screen. He doesn't know how Tim does it so often. Or how Babs stays awake and sane. “How'd you two get into the field you're in?”

Mary begins first and it's a short statement about how she always enjoyed ancient cultures. When Lucien starts to answer his eyes light up. He does look, truly, like he is passionate about his work and Dick finds himself smiling, thinking back to the dinner date and how he'd described his reasons for the museum with the same kind of joy. But then a frown creases Lucien's brow. “Mr. Grayson? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says automatically. “I'm fine. Why?”

“Your eyes are...” he hesitates. “Kind of dilated I think?”

The light in the room does seem a little painful, now that he thinks about. It would be nice to shut his eyes. Nice to be somewhere cool and dark. “I didn't sleep well last night,” he begins. He feels like his tongue is getting thicker, like he's slurring his words. 

The last thing he sees is Lucien's concerned face as he pitches forward. He hears someone yell, “Watch his head!” 

The coffee. It had to be the coffee. 

\-----

Dick hates being drugged. Anyone would, he supposes, but he experiences it often enough that he has a real distaste for it. It gives him a headache and makes his mouth feel like it's not dry but full of saliva-soaked cotton. 

He takes stock of himself before he moves. This, too, is trained into him after so many moments of getting drugged. He has to not let his captors know he's awake. He feels. He's bruised. There's something wet on his side. But he's not bound, and he's not otherwise more injured than he was when he went unconscious. It's chilly, and he's outside. 

He listens. There are no sounds of human life. No cars. No voices. He hears the soft rustle of leaves and some far-away burrowing of animals. 

At last he opens his eyes. The world is dark at first, before some pinpoints of light meet his vision. Stars. It's night, and the sky seems abnormally bright before he realizes that it's because there's no light pollution and it's a full moon. 

He's in the woods. A light rain has fallen and turned into an unpleasant, chilly kind of mist. The world smells like green leaves and rotting vegetation. The circle of life. He has all his fingers and toes, he can move, he's bruise don his shin from no doubt being dropped when he was moved here, and the wetness on his shirt he'd at first thought was rain is actually blood. The bandage over the mark carved into his belly has been torn off and the scabs have peeled away too, leaving the wound seeping slightly. 

His phone has been taken, which is no surprise. His wallet is gone too which is a little odd and he dwells in the fantasy for a moment that this is all an elaborate scheme to pickpocket him and he'll get up, hike back to civilization, and be fine. 

Then he hears the distant baying of dogs and reality comes crashing back on him. He's on his feet in the wobbly blink of an eye and then he processes a bit more. The sound is coyotes, not wolves, and it's quite far away. Farther away than the werewolves hunting him will be. 

He quashes that painful feeling of betrayal in his chest, that Lucien would drug him and abandon him to be hunted. Because that's what's happened, he has to assume. Someone along the line got to Lucien and he's worth more handed over than he is protected for another month. 

He can see the faint glow of city lights in the sky. Far enough away that he thinks he'll never make it, but he heads that direction anyway because at least it's a destination. Even if he doesn't get torn to shreds by wildlife, natural or otherwise, the damp rain might cause some hypothermia issues if he is lost out here for a while. That's what he tells himself, anyway, because focusing on freezing to death is better than the alternative that is waiting. 

It turns out his plan is more difficult to follow than he thought it would be. He'd been left in a clearing but when he's in the woods proper, he loses sight of the distant city lights. He ends up going to a circle, finding out he did so only because he runs into the imprint his body made in the grass earlier. 

He tries to do it differently the next time, moving a bit faster, because he feels like he's being watched. He's here to be _hunted_ he remembers. He probably should work on leaving before they arrive. 

Behind him he hears a noise and it's definitely a wolf's howl. Dick starts to run. He's in good shape. It's still difficult running in the darkness, trying not to get caught in the underbrush or beam himself on a low-hanging tree branch. He's focused on the sound behind him, on evening out his breathing, and he doesn't notice anything lurking above him until it nearly drops on top of him. 

Until _she_ drops on top of him. He muffles a shriek and trips, sprawling face first. He literally eats mud, landing hard enough that the wet dirt splatters up through his parted lips. “Good thing your name is Grayson and not graceful,” Artemis comments dryly. She offers him a hand up. 

She's bigger than he is. Several inches taller and some pounds heavier. He takes her hand and lets her pull him up because the mud is making a wet noise as it tries to suck him back into it. He's barely up when he realizes the impossibility of her being here. He jerks his hand back, nearly falls on his ass again. 

“I'm trying to help you,” she chides. “Your lover seems to want you to get out of this in one, uneaten piece. Considering you've been wandering in circles I think you need the help.” 

_His lover_ shouldn't have a strange, thrilling ring that takes him by surprise and makes him warm all over despite the chill settling into his bones. “But why?” He asks. “And shouldn't you be a wolf?”

He sees the glint of Artemis's eyes in her shadowed face. “Do you listen?”

He wants to ask what she means but she's already dragging him along and he's too focused for a second on getting his legs to move properly. _Artemis gave up a lot for me,_ Jason had said and more other little things and when combined with research... “You gave it up,” he realizes. “When you turn someone, you stop being a wolf.” 

“In most cases,” she agrees then adds more sarcastically “Give the boy a prize.” 

Then they are running. She doesn't hold his hand, she holds his wrist. She tugs him non too gently but beggars can't be choosers as far as help goes. They run until his lungs are burning and until his side is aching sharply. His jeans are heavy and uncomfortable and the only warmth he feels is the occasional gush of blood from the wound in his side. 

It feels like they make no progress at all. The moon rises, but the glow of the city is still far away. He hears a howl again and it sounds so close it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “At least you running in a circle had some benefit,” Artemis notes grimly. “They're confused on your trail. Can you keep running?”

They're speed-walking while Dick catches his breath and clutches his side. The other woman is breathing hard as well but, Dick has to admit, she's probably in better shape. “How did I get here?” He says instead of answering the question. “How did _you_ get here? I know I was drugged and dumped but-” 

Artemis shakes her head. The end of her ponytail hits him. “Do not go down that road and wonder what personal fault there was to make people wish you ill enough to kill you. The power here...well there is a saying about power corrupting, isn't there?”She doesn't wait for him to answer that, either. “That's all it is. You were marked to be hunted as an enemy of the pack and you were going to be out of their reach. Someone thought by giving you over, they would gain that power.” 

“They didn't get it?” He asks helplessly. He thinks he can breathe again, even if he throat feels raw. 

She gives him a look he can't read by moonlight. “Run,” she tells him, an instant before another howl rises up, joined by more. “Run and if you lose me, keep running.” 

He obeys. Heart pounding, blood rushing through his ears and dripping down his side. He's leaving a trail of it, he knows but there's no time to stop and staunch the flow of it. It's not dangerous, otherwise. Part of him remembers Bruce's lectures on when to stay and fight. But he can't; he'll be sorely outnumbered, if nothing else. 

They rush through a fall of brush, and Artemis lets go of his wrist. Then Dick is falling down a hill, steep enough it has to be man-made. He slides and skids on wet earth, able only to slow his descent rather than stop it. He hits the ground at the bottom hard, air and sense both knocked out of him. This is how he dies, he thinks, exactly like Bruce once told him he would if he didn't watch where he was going. 

There's something warm beside him. He hasn't been warm in so long during this little adventure that he doesn't recognize the sensation at first. He assumes it's Artemis, who is going to lift him back to his feet and force him to run again, before he feels something go under his arm and nudge him. 

It's a head nudging him, not an Amazonian boot. A large, furred head with a long muzzle.  
To his everlasting credit, Dick doesn't scream. He rolls away from it, scoots on his butt until he can get to his feet. Standing in front of him is a giant wolf, shaggy with red fur that has gone auburn because of the rain. It's _huge_ and there's definitely no mistaking it for any kind of natural canine. Maybe it's the scout. Maybe it ran faster than the others. Maybe it gets to take the first bite out of him. 

It stares at him, and then tosses its big head across the open field that leads to more trees. Dick stares at it. It prances in place, and tosses its head again. When Dick still stays in the same spot it comes toward him and _shoves_ at him. 

There are sounds of battle. Growls and yelps somewhere in the trees behind him. The wolf by his side nips the back of his thigh and Dick is spurred to motion despite not truly deciding to start running again. The red-furred beast runs too. It runs _with_ him. 

They cross the large expanse of field together. It looks like a site cleared for a building that never came to be. Dick doesn't have time to dwell on that. The moon is brighter here and he's a sitting duck. He hopes none of the werewolves have ranged weapons. 

The moon also reveals that his werewolf companion has bright green eyes, and a white streak in its fur. “Jason?” He asks. There's a hint of hysteria in his voice. He'd believed before, but seeing it is something else. 

The wolf headbutts his legs again, but not hard enough to knock him down, and Dick takes the hint. This time he doesn't run full-tilt. He tries to pace himself before he burns himself out. Jason runs with him, and a few times circles around him, no doubt seeing how far behind them his pursuers are. It makes a point on Dick; the wolves are fast and they definitely don't tire as quickly as even a trained superhero does. 

Watching Jason is always something amazing. It's a guilty habit of Dick's to just _watch_ Jason. Watch him fight. Watch him fuck. Watch him when they are just sitting there doing nothing. He's gorgeous and Dick's stomach does funny things observing him. 

But watching him now? It's like poetry in motion. He's beautiful and sleek. He's powerful in ways that he isn't in his human form. Dick could stare at him all night if he wasn't running for his life. 

He yelps when he feels something sharp at the back of his legs. Jason's nipping him and he swears he looks frantic. Swears his expression says _Go._

Then he hears something behind him. Dick runs as fast as he can. He swings over branches, dives over bushes. He trips once and rolls back to his feet. There's an instinct that overtakes him when he's in a dangerous situation. He likes to think of it as switching into being Nightwing, and that's who he becomes. He runs faster, he's more graceful. He tunes out the pain in his body and he keeps charging through the woods. 

It almost works, too. He almost outpaces whatever is behind him. Even Jason seems surprised, keeping pace with him, but then it becomes clear he can't run forever. He certainly can't run all the way to the city. 

Jason makes a noise when they reach a little creek. It's almost a whine. He nudes Dick again in the proper direction, and he turns back. 

“No,” Dick says. “I'm not going to go without you.” 

The wolf shakes his head. He nudges him again, harder. 

Dick is ready to argue when a large, brown wolf bursts out of the trees. Jason intercepts it mid-air and they both go flying. Surely they won't hurt Jason. Surely they wouldn't go to all this effort to punish him just to kill him.

He has no weapons. That hasn't stopped Nightwing before but Nightwing has never had to fight giant fucking werewolves. Jason seems to be holding his own as dick searches desperately for a rock or a stick or _anything_.

That's when he hears something different. A low whine, a hum and it's as familiar to him. Like a voice of someone he knows. An ATV. The one he's used as Robin. It's ahead of him instead of behind. Dick is torn. He wants to help Jason but he also knows his best way of helping Jason is getting out of here and finding _better_ help. “I'll be back,” he pants. He's not sure if the words are heard. 

He summons up that last bit of strength and hauls himself up the creek bank. It's slippery. The rain has lessened but the effects aren't gone. Dick claws his way up and makes his way toward the sound. 

In the darkness he sees a figure and, true to his fevered imaginings, his ATV. The form riding it is too small to be Bruce. Damian, he decides after a moment. He waves his arms in the air as he runs and Damian spots him. 

“You look ridiculous,” he informs him while Dick gasps for air and almost sobs with relief. “What is happening? We were alerted to something about you being in the woods and wolves-” 

“Werewolves,” Dick corrects. “Jason...fighting one...you have to help him. But he's also a wolf.” He's not making much sense, he realizes. 

“Todd is a wolf who is fighting werewolves?” Damian repeats. “Are you hallucinating? What's your statu-” 

Dick is only a little vindicated when Jason comes loping out of the trees. His muzzle is bloody and his coat is stained. He's limping a bit. But he's _alive_ and- “No!” He tells Damian who is clearly taking aim at the large beast. “No! That's Jason! He can't get out of wolf form. You'll have to trust me. We need to get out of here.” 

Damian has always been the sanest of them, if Dick is entirely honest. He's always been the least prone to bouts of imagination. He's always been reasonable. His trust in Dick must be an astonishing thing because he gives a curt nod. “Get on behind me.” He looks at the wolf that has come to a stop nearby. “Can you run with us?” He pauses. “Does it understand?”

He swears Jason rolls his eyes, but he hesitates a bit at the question. 

“I think he's hurt,” Dick says. There comes another howl behind him, and then there's no time to think any more. Dick grabs the Jason wolf and hauls it over the back of the ATV, belly down. “Curl your legs up,” he orders and holds him there anyway as he climbs on, so that Jason's furry body is pressed between himself and Damian. 

“Hold on,” Damian murmurs and then they are flying. Not literally of course. But Damian is a demon on the ATV. He steers it with a precision that Dick is jealous of and Dick is mentally marveling at the upgrade. 

He thinks he hears Damian say something. He must have contact with Bruce and whoever else is looking for him and he can't even be angry because he needs the help and so does Jason. But what's the ending here? They survive the night and hide out...and then what?

“The museum,” Dick decides. “I need...” He realizes Damian can't hear him and he leans forward to talk into his ear. “We need to go to the Wonder Woman museum. I want to take some books.” 

If Damian thinks that visiting a museum in the middle of the night and stealing some books is odd or not a good idea, he doesn't say anything. He advises him to hold on tightly. Dick leans forward against the wind, fingers tangled in Jason's fur. 

\-----

Dick finds a rock too late and it's only good for smashing in the glass panel of the museum door. No alarms go off. Dick is prepared to unlock the ten different locks but is surprised that only one bolt has been thrown. Jason waits patiently behind him, panting softly. As soon as the door opens, he whines. 

“What?” Dick questions .”We're just going to go in, sweep a bunch of books about werewolves into a bag, and get out. It's our best shot, right?”

Sure, they could do this during daylight hours. They could probably source some texts legitimately. But Dick is pissed off and, honestly he's hoping for a confrontation. He wants to know how they could do this to him, to anyone. 

Jason shoves him out of the way, walking quickly inside. Dick follows, swearing as he bumps his shin on the edge of a case and then trips over something else in the darkness. Jason is making a beeline for the back offices, taking the same path Dick had followed earlier in the day. It seems like he knows where the books are kept at least. 

Dick finds the light switch and is looking for a good bag to shove some books into, already preparing his apology to the side of Barbara that is a librarian, when he smells something. Most humans don't know the scent of blood. He imagines there are trauma doctors and coroners and mob bosses who know it. He does too from his life of fighting crime. This is new blood. Metallic and bitter and sickening. It hangs in the air of Lucien Samuels's office like a disgusting perfume. For a moment he thinks it's his blood, but there's too much of it. 

Jason is beside the desk and he gives a short bark. When Dick follows he sees feet first. He doesn't understand. His mind doesn't process the scene until he sees pale hair and the museum's owner lying there in a puddle of congealing blood. 

“Fuck,” he swears. “Lucien?”

His eyes fly open and Dick and Jason both jump despite themselves. Dick is about to order Jason to call 911 before he remembers he's a wolf. Dick still doesn't have his cell phone. “Let me call for an ambulance. What happened?”

“It might be too late for that,” Lucien wheezes. “How are you here? I thought she...thought she was going to give you to the wolves.” For the first time he seems to realize there's a wolf standing directly over him. He doesn't even startle, only stares. “I'm glad you got away.” 

“Who was giving me to wolves?” Dick asks. He's searching the desk for a phone. There's no landline so he starts looking for the cellphone Lucien must have out of reach. “Where's your phone?”

“Mary...Mary thought she could make a deal with the pack. Thought she could get their immortality. Thought she could become one of them if she gave them you.” 

“It's more or less what Dick was expecting but it doesn't make him like it any more. “Your phone,” he prompts. 

“Too late. Ask your...friend.” Lucien shifts a little, like he's in pain. “It's in my coat pocket,” he eventually cedes. 

Dick looks at Jason as he gets out Lucien's phone. Their gazes meet and even with those wolf eyes, he sees confirmation. The man on the floor is dying. “What happened to you?” Dick asks. 

“She drugged you. I thought you fainted or something but then...” he laughs. Blood comes out of his mouth. His teeth are stained with it. “She stabbed me in the back. Literally.” 

That explains the wet sound of him trying to breathe. Dick calls an ambulance. When he turns around, Jason is lapping at the blood on the floor. “God,” he whispers. “Don't do that. Help me roll him over. Can you do that?”

Something strange is in Jason's face and Dick's a little worried he's going to have to wrestle him away. He paws at Lucien's leg. The man opens his eyes again and looks at him. Jason's mouth flexes. He's miming biting. Dick thinks he might be warming up to actually eat him, but then Lucien speaks. “I can't ask you to give it up.” 

Jason shrugs his large shoulders. Mimes biting again and bumps his head against Lucien's thigh. 

“What's going on?” Dick asks. 

“He's...offering to bite me. To turn me. But then he won't be a wolf...” 

“Wait,” Dick says. “Do you want to be a wolf?” 

“Given the choice...” Lucien has gotten even paler, if that's possible. He goes quiet. His breathing is more labored. His eyes are more vacant. “Yes.” 

“Bite him,” Dick orders. 

For once, there's no debate. There's no balking. Jason bites into Lucien's thigh.  
By the time the ambulance arrives, Lucien has lost consciousness but he still has a pulse. Jason has disappeared into the museum with the first sign of the paramedics. Dick can tell the paramedics precious little about Lucien's condition. He knows they're suspicious of his story of falling down a hill on his way to meet Lucien for a date and coming to find him. That's why he's covered in mud. That's why his side is bleeding. He turns down medical attention for himself. 

It's almost dawn when all is said and done and Dick feels exhausted. He calls Bruce to come get him. “I don't want to hear it,” he tells Jason when he emerges from the darkness. Dick's called a cleaning crew to the museum and covered the broken window in cardboard. 

Jason huffs. He's still a wolf. Dick has no idea if anything at all worked, and Jason can't tell him if this is how he was turned. He's just going to have to wait. 

Bruce arrives in a regular car, instead of the Batmobile. He opens the back door for Jason to climb in. Then he gets in the passenger seat and buckles up. They drive in silence for a moment, and Dick is the one to break first. He's always the one to break first. “So,” he says. “Have I got a story for you. But first say hello to Jason. He's the werewolf in your back seat.” 

Damian must have clued him in on some of it because Bruce doesn't swerve off the road. “Hello, Jason,” he says. “Welcome back.” 

Jason grumbles. 

\-----

At some point, the sun rises, and Jason turns back into a man. Dick doesn't see it; it's like one moment there's a dog flopped on his side and the next there's a naked man. Alfred is ready and tosses a blanket over Jason. He doesn't even wake up. 

Dick gets his side cleaned and bandaged again after he takes a shower and drinks something hot to raise his body temperature. Bruce gives them space, looking stricken, but seeming to know that cornering them after a night of running through the woods being pursued by werewolves isn't the best move in the effort of making peace. “How long have you known he was alive?” Dick asks, softly enough not to wake the subject of the conversation. 

Bruce frowns. “I never knew for certain but after Artemis deviated her pattern to stay in Gotham, I began to suspect.” 

Dick texts Babs to give her a run down of what happened. She responds telling him to get kidnapped somewhere else, next time, because she's not putting cameras in the forest. She's a soothing counter to talking to Bruce. “And you didn't tell me?”

“I didn't tell _anyone_ ,” Bruce stresses. “I didn't want to raise hopes until I could be more certain and Artemis proved to be very difficult to pin down. I knew she was in the city but I could very rarely find her.” 

That's a compliment if he ever heard one. He'll have to pass it on to her when he sees her again. And, if Jason is in his life, he knows he will see her again. 

When Jason's eyes finally open it's almost lunchtime. He stretches, blinks at the roof of the cave, and then his gaze rests on Dick. “Did it work?”

“You tell me,” Dick replies. “You're not a wolf anymore.” 

“I'm never a wolf during the day,” he replies. He groans as he rolls over and peeks underneath the blanket. “Yep, naked. Do I at least get coffee?”

They have coffee. Jason sighs in something like orgasmic bliss and tells him how Alfred makes the strongest coffee around that doesn't taste like battery acid. They decide, eventually, that they won't know until the next full moon. Providing Lucien Samuels doesn't die in the meantime. 

Dick calls to check his status and is told that they can't release that information since he's not family. When he resorts to less upstanding means to find out, he learns Lucien is still alive and resting, but considered in critical condition. He had to receive a blood transfusion and neither of them know what that will do to a potential werewolf bite and conversion. 

Then a call comes in with an emergency in Bludhaven and it's like life goes back to normal. The normal it was before anything happened to Jason the second time. Dick is back to patrolling the streets, Tim is back to the Titans, Damian is back to clinging to his side as much as he thinks is seemly, Bruce is back to mentoring, and Jason? Jason is as absent as he's ever been, drifting in and out of the Gotham villains scene when the mood suits him and planning adventures across the globe that Dick both envies and knows could be his if he reached for them. He had far more time to sow his wild oats as a teenager than Jason did, but maybe he wasn't as done as he thought he was. 

Lucien starts to recover. Dick makes his pilgrimage to Gotham to see him in person. It turns out he lives in a brownstone not far from Barbara, and a certain red-haired Amazon and red-masked vigilante have been visiting enough to bring him groceries and have chats with him. He seems genuinely happy, genuinely grateful to be alive, and Dick hopes his tune doesn't change when the moon is full again. 

No one has heard from Dr. Mary Emms. There's a missing person's file on her and one of her doctors filed the report. Dick isn't anxious to bring up old ghosts, but he knows it's on Bruce's radar now and that's enough for him to put it to bed mentally, at least. 

He drops by to give Babs a thank you kiss and take her to dinner. Then he stands, like he used to, on one of the designated rooftops. It's the one where he and Jason kissed for the first time, though last time he brought that up Jason swore not to remember something as sentimental as that. 

He doesn't wait long. They are going on twenty-two days since the last full moon, and time suddenly seems a little more precious to both of them. Jason arrives smelling of leather and fire and the cigarettes he's taken up again for some stress relief. He hasn't heard from the werewolves either. It's like they've vanished, like they never were, and Jason's already told him he's getting the hell out of Gotham as soon as he's sure this wolf thing is squared away and taking a long vacation. 

“I want to go with you,” Dick says when they stop kissing and come up for air. 

Jason makes an inquisitive noise, his face going toward Dick's neck to scrape his five o'clock shadow against the sensitive skin there. He's listening, but clearly not _listening_. 

“When you leave Gotham, I want to go with you,” he repeats, but he's quickly allowing himself to be distracted. “Just for a week or two.” 

Finally, the other man pulls back and peers at him. There's a hesitation in his gaze that hurts Dick; it seems like he's so ready for the other shoe to drop, for this to be a joke or a trap. “Why?”

He can't take offense to it. He shrugs and starts working his hand against the crotch of Jason's pants. He doesn't like to talk about serious things any more than his would-be lover does. Dick usually resorts to sex to be distracting the same way Jason resorts to anger. “I think I've earned time off and I can come back fresh. And I want to spend time with you. Just you. Away from all this bullshit.” 

Jason is half heartedly batting his hand away even as his hips are arching toward that questing hand. “Don't you have responsibilities?”

“I think they can wait another little while. Seems most things in Bludhaven were fine while I was away for this and I'll only be a phone call away if anything goes wrong. But I was thinking about it-” 

Jason is back to kissing his neck. A large hand slides up Dick's spine, scratches at the place that is his weakness, and he almost buries any serious conversation for the night. “Yeah? I knew I smelled something burning when you were thinking,” Jason teases. “What about?”

It feels so silly to say. It feels so sobering. “Tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Look at what happened...look at _everything_ that happened. So I want to spend today with you. All of my todays, as many as I can manage.” 

Jason pulls back to look at him. “You wanna wait until the next full moon before you say that? You might regret it.” 

“Never,” Dick argues. “Even if I'm kissing you on your furry snout and getting your hair stuck between my teeth.” 

“Gross,” Jason says, but he's smiling. “You know the reason the bite transfers like that? Because Leto never found her love, so none of the wolves ever can either.” 

“What a miserable life,” Dick sighs, then pauses. “Did you just say you love me?”

“No.”

“You did! You said I'm your love!” 

“You could get on your knees and do that thing with your tongue to my cock. Then I might consider you being my love. I've missed your tongue.”

It's not emotional. Dick didn't expect it to be. Jason isn't gone, and that's enough for today.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it to the end!


End file.
